The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane,
Volume II (of 3), by Alain René Le Sage

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Title: The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Volume II (of 3)

Author: Alain René Le Sage

Translator: Tobias Smollett

Release Date: November 5, 2021 [eBook #66678]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF
SANTILLANE, VOLUME II (OF 3) ***






  ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE


  THE ADVENTURES

  OF

  GIL BLAS

  OF SANTILLANE


  TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY TOBIAS SMOLLETT


  PRECEDED BY

  _A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICE OF LE SAGE_

  BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY


  With Twelve Original Etchings by R. de Los Rios


  _IN THREE VOLUMES--VOL. II._



  LONDON
  J. C. NIMMO AND BAIN
  14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
  NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, WELFORD & CO.
  1881




CONTENTS OF VOL. II.


BOOK THE FOURTH--CONTINUED.

CHAPTER VII.

Gil Blas leaves his Place, and goes into the Service of Don Gonzales
Pacheco.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Marchioness of Chaves; her Character, and that of her Company.

CHAPTER IX.

An Incident which parted Gil Blas and the Marchioness of Chaves.  The
subsequent Destination of the Former.

CHAPTER X.

The History of Don Alphonso and the fair Seraphina.

CHAPTER XI.

The old Hermit turns out an extraordinary Genius, and Gil Blas finds
himself among his former Acquaintance.



BOOK THE FIFTH

CHAPTER I.

History of Don Raphael

CHAPTER II.

Don Raphael's Consultation with his Company, and their Adventures as
they were preparing to leave the Wood.



BOOK THE SIXTH.

CHAPTER I.

The Fate of Gil Blas and his Companions after they took Leave of the
Count de Polan.  One of Ambrose's notable Contrivances, set off by
the Manner of its Execution.

CHAPTER II.

The Determination of Don Alphonso and Gil Blas, after this Adventure.

CHAPTER III.

An unfortunate Occurrence, which terminated to the high Delight of
Don Alphonso.  Gil Blas meets with an Adventure, which places him all
at once in a very superior Situation.



BOOK THE SEVENTH.

CHAPTER I.

The tender Attachment between Gil Blas and Dame Lorenza Zephora.

CHAPTER II.

What happened to Gil Blas after his Retreat from the Castle of Leyva,
showing that those who are crossed in Love are not always the most
miserable of Mankind.

CHAPTER III.

Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's Favorite, and the Channel of all
his Favors.

CHAPTER IV.

The Archbishop is afflicted with a Stroke of Apoplexy.  How Gil Blas
gets into a Dilemma, and how he gets out.

CHAPTER V.

The Course which Gil Blas took after the Archbishop had given him his
Dismissal.  His accidental Meeting with the Licentiate who was so
deeply in his Debt; and a Picture of Gratitude in the Person of a
Parson.

CHAPTER VI.

Gil Blas goes to the Play at Grenada.  His Surprise at seeing one of
the Actresses, and what happened thereupon.

CHAPTER VII.

Laura's Story

CHAPTER VIII.

The Reception of Gil Blas among the Players at Grenada; and another
old Acquaintance picked up in the Green-room.

CHAPTER IX.

An extraordinary Companion at Supper, and an Account of their
Conversation.

CHAPTER X.

The Marquis dc Marialva gives a Commission to Gil Blas.  That
faithful Secretary acquits himself of it as shall be related.

CHAPTER XI.

A Thunderbolt to Gil Blas

CHAPTER XII.

Gil Blas takes Lodgings in a ready-furnished House.  He gets
acquainted with Captain Chinchilla.  That Officer's Character and
Business at Madrid.

CHAPTER XIII.

Gil Blas comes across his dear Friend Fabricio at Court.  Great
Ecstasy on both Sides.  They adjourn together and compare Notes; but
their Conversation is too curious to be anticipated.

CHAPTER XIV.

Fabricio finds a Situation for Gil Blas in the Establishment of Count
Galiano, a Sicilian Nobleman.

CHAPTER XV.

The Employment of Gil Blas in Don Galiano's Household.

CHAPTER XVI.

An Accident happens to the Count de Galiano's Monkey; his Lordship's
Affliction on that Occasion.  The Illness of Gil Blas, and its
Consequences.



BOOK THE EIGHTH.

CHAPTER I.

Gil Blas scrapes an Acquaintance of some Value, and finds wherewithal
to make him Amends for the Count de Galiano's Ingratitude.  Don
Valerio de Luna's Story.

CHAPTER II.

Gil Blas is introduced to the Duke of Lerma, who admits him among the
Number of his Secretaries, and requires a Specimen of his Talents,
with which he is well satisfied.

CHAPTER III.

All is not Gold that glitters.  Some Uneasiness resulting from the
Discovery of that Principle in Philosophy, and its practical
Application to existing Circumstances.

CHAPTER IV.

Gil Blas becomes a Favorite with the Duke of Lerma, and the Confidant
of an important Secret.

CHAPTER V.

The Joys, the Honors, and the Miseries of a Court Life in the Person
of Gil Blas.

CHAPTER VI.

Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a Hint of his wretched Condition.
That Minister deals with him accordingly.

CHAPTER VII.

A good Use made of the fifteen hundred Ducats.  A first Introduction
to the Trade of Office, and an Account of the Profit accruing
therefrom.




HISTORY OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE.



BOOK THE FOURTH.--(CONTINUED).



_CHAPTER VII._

_GIL BLAS LEAVES HIS PLACE AND GOES INTO THE SERVICE OF DON GONZALES
PACHECO._

Three weeks after marriage, my mistress bethought herself of
rewarding the services I had rendered her.  She made me a present of
a hundred pistoles, telling me at the same time: Gil Blas, my good
fellow, it is not that I mean to turn you away, for you have my free
leave to stay here as long as you please; but my husband has an
uncle, Don Gonzales Pacheco, who wants you very much for a
valet-de-chambre.  I have given you so excellent a character, that he
would let me have no peace till I consented to part with you.  He is
a very worthy old nobleman, so that you will be quite in your element
in his family.

I thanked Aurora for all her kindness, and, as my occupation was over
about her, I so much the more readily accepted the post that offered,
as it was merely a transfer from one branch of the Pachecos to
another.  One morning, therefore, I called on the illustrious Don
Gonzales with a message from the bride.  He ought at least to have
overslept himself, for he was in bed at near noon.  When I went into
his chamber, a page had just brought him a basin of soup, which he
was taking.  The dotard cherished his whiskers, or rather tortured
them with curling-papers; though his eyes were sunk in their sockets,
his complexion pale, and his visage emaciated.  This was one of those
old codgers who have been a little whimsical or so in their youth,
and have made poor amends for their freedoms by the discretion of
their riper age.  His reception of me was affable enough, with an
assurance that if my attachment to him kept pace with my fidelity to
his niece, my condition should not be worse than that of my fellows.
I promised to place him in my late mistress's shoes, and became the
working partner in a new firm.

A new firm it undoubtedly was, and heaven knows we had a strange head
of the house.  The resurrection of Lazarus was an ordinary event
compared to his getting up.  Imagine to yourself a long bag of dry
bones, a mere skeleton, a dissection, an anatomy of a man; a study in
osteology!  As for the legs, three or four pair of stockings, one
over the other, had no room to make any figure upon them.  In
addition to the foregoing, this mummy before death was asthmatic, and
therefore obliged to divide the little breath he had between his
cough and his loquacity.  He breakfasted on chocolate.  On the
strength of that refreshment, he ventured to call for pen, ink, and
paper, and to write a short note, which he sealed and sent to its
address by the page who had administered the broth.  But this
henceforth will be your office, my good lad, said he, as he turned
his haggard eyes upon me; all my little concerns will be in your
hands, and especially those in which Donna Euphrasia takes an
interest.  That lady is an enchanting young creature, with whom I am
distractedly in love, and by whom, though I say it who should not say
it, I am met with all the mutual ardor of inextinguishable and
unutterable passion.

Heaven defend us! thought I within myself: good now! if this old
antidote to rapture can fancy himself an object on which the fair
should waste their sweets, is it any wonder that among our young
folks each fancies himself the Adonis, for whom every Venus pines?
Gil Blas, pursued he with a chuckle, this very day will I take you to
this abode of pleasure: it is my house of call almost every evening
for a bit of supper.  You will be quite petrified at her modest
appearance, and the rigid propriety of her behavior.  Far from taking
after those little wanton vagrants, who are hey-go mad after
striplings, and give themselves up to the fascinations of exterior
appearance, she has a proper insight into things, staid, ripe, and
judicious: what she wants is the _bonâ fide_ spirit and discretion of
a man; a lover who has served an apprenticeship to his trade, in
preference to all the flashy fellows of the modern school.  This is
but an epitome of the panegyric, which the noble duke Don Gonzales
pronounced upon his mistress.  He burdened himself with the task of
proving her a compendium of all human perfection; but the lecture was
little calculated for the conviction of the hearer.  I had attended
an experimental course among the actresses; and had always found that
the elderly candidates had been plucked in their amours.  Yet, as a
matter of courtesy, it was impossible not to put on the semblance of
giving implicit credit to my master's veracity; I even added chivalry
to courtesy, and threw down my glove on Euphrasia's penetration and
the correctness of her taste.  My impudence went the length of
asserting, that it was impossible for her to have selected a
better-provided crony.  The grown-up simpleton was not aware, that I
was fumigating his nostrils at the expense of his addled brain; on
the contrary, he bristled at my praises: so true is it, that a
flatterer may play what game he likes against the pigeons of high
life!  They let you look over their hand, and then wonder that you
beat them.

The old crawler, having scribbled through his billet-doux, restrained
the luxuriance of a straggling hair or two with his tweezers; then
bathed his eyes in the nostrum of some perfumer to give them a
brilliancy which their natural gum would have eclipsed.  His ears
were to be picked and washed, and his hands to be cleansed from the
effects of his other ablutions; and the labors of the toilet were to
be closed, by pencilling every remaining hair in the disforested
domain of his whiskers, pericranium, and eyebrows.  No old dowager,
with a purse to buy a second husband, ever took more pains to assure
herself by the cultivation of her charms, that the person, and not
the fortune, should be the object of attraction.  The assassin stab
of time was parried by the quart and tierce of art.  Just as he had
done making himself up, in came another old fogram of his
acquaintance, by name the Count of Asumar.  This genius made no
secret of his gray locks; leaned upon a stick, and seemed to plume
himself on his venerable age, instead of wishing to appear in the
heyday of his prime.  Signor Pacheco, said he as he came in, I am
come to take pot-luck with you to-day.  You are always welcome,
count, rejoined my master.  No sooner said than done! they embraced
with a thousand grimaces, took their seats opposite to one another,
and began chatting till dinner was served.

Their conversation turned at first upon a bull-feast which had taken
place a few days before.  They talked about the cavaliers, and who
among them had displayed most dexterity and vigor; whereupon the old
count, like another Nestor, whom present events furnish with a topic
of expatiating on the past, said, with a deep-drawn sigh: Alas! where
will you meet with men, nowadays, fit to hold a candle to my
contemporaries?  The public diversions are a mere bauble, to what
they were when I was a young man.  I could not help chuckling in my
sleeve at my good lord of Asumar's whim; for he did not stop at the
handiwork of human invention.  Would you believe it?  At table, when
the fruit was brought in, at the sight of some very fine peaches,
this ungrateful consumer of the earth's produce exclaimed: In my
time, the peaches were of a much larger size than they are now; but
nature sinks lower and lower from day to day.  If that is the case,
said Don Gonzales with a sneer, Adam's hot-house fruit must have been
of a most unwieldy circumference.

The count of Asumar staid till quite evening with my master, who had
no sooner got rid of him, than he sallied forth with me in his train.
We went to Euphrasia's, who lived within a stone's throw of our
house, and found her lodged in a style of the first elegance.  She
was tastefully dressed, and for the youthfulness of her air might
have been taken to be in her teens, though thirty bonny summers at
least had poured their harvests in her lap.  She had often been
reckoned pretty, and her wit was exquisite.  Neither was she one of
your brazen-faced jilts, with nothing but flimsy balderdash in their
talk, and a libertine forwardness in their manners: here was modesty
of carriage as well as propriety of discourse; and she threw out her
little sallies in the most exquisite manner, without seeming to
aspire beyond natural good sense.  O heaven! said I, is it possible
that a creature of so virtuous a stamp by nature should have
abandoned herself to vicious courses for a livelihood?  I had taken
it for granted, that all women of light character carried the mark of
the beast upon their foreheads.  It was a surprise therefore to see
such apparent rectitude of conduct; neither did it occur to me that
these hacks for all customers could go at any pace, and assume the
polish of well-bred society, to impose upon their cullies of the
higher ranks.  What if a lively petulance should be the order of the
day? they are lively and petulant.  Should modesty take its turn in
the round of fashion, nothing can exceed their outward show of
prudent and delicate reserve.  They play the comedy of love in many
masks; and are the prude, the coquette, or the virago, as they fall
in with the quiz, the coxcomb, or the bully.

Don Gonzales was a gentleman and a man of taste; he could not stomach
those beauties who call a spade, a spade.  Such were not for his
market; the rites of Venus must be consummated in the temple of
Vesta.  Euphrasia had got up her part accordingly, and proved by her
performance that there is no comedy like that of real life.  I left
my master, like another Numa with his Egeria, and went down into a
hall, where whom should fortune throw in my way but an old abigail,
whom I had formerly known as maid-of-all-work to an actress?  The
recognition was mutual.  So! well met once more, Signor Gil Blas,
said she.  Then you have turned off Arsenia, just as I have parted
with Constance.  Yes, truly, answered I, it is a long while ago since
I went away, and exchanged her service for that of a very different
lady.  Neither the theatre nor the people about it are to my taste.
I gave myself my own discharge, without condescending to the
slightest explanation with Arsenia.  You were perfectly in the right,
replied the new-found abigail, called Beatrice.  That was pretty much
my method of proceeding with Constance.  One morning early, I gave in
my accounts with a very sulky air; she took them from me in moody
silence, and we parted in a sort of well-bred dudgeon.

I am quite delighted, said I, that we have met again, where we need
not be ashamed of our employers.  Donna Euphrasia looks for all the
world like a woman of fashion, and I am much deceived if she has not
reputation too.  You are too clear-sighted to be deceived, answered
the old appendage to sin.  She is of a good family; and as for her
temper, I can assure you it is unparalleled for evenness and
sweetness.  None of your termagant mistresses, never to be pleased,
but always grumbling and scolding about everything, making the house
ring with their clack, and fretting poor servants to a thread, whose
places, in short, are a hell upon earth!  I have not in all this time
heard her raise her voice on any occasion whatever.  When things
happen not to be done exactly in her way, she sets them to rights
without any anger, nor does any of that bad language escape her lips,
of which some high-spirited ladies are so liberal.  My master, too,
rejoined I, is very mild in his disposition; the very milk of human
kindness; and in this respect we are, between ourselves, much better
off than when we lived among the actresses.  A thousand times better,
replied Beatrice; my life used to be all bustle and distraction; but
this place is an actual hermitage.  Not a creature darkens our doors
but this excellent Don Gonzales.  You will be my only helpmate in my
solitude, and my lot is but too greatly blessed.  For this long time
have I cherished an affection for you: and many a time and oft have I
begrudged that Laura the felicity of engrossing you for her
sweetheart; but in the end I hope to be even with her.  If I cannot
boast of youth and beauty like hers, to balance the account, I detest
coquetry, and have all the constancy as well as affection of a
turtle-dove.

As honest Beatrice was one of those ladies who are obliged to hawk
their wares, and cheapen themselves for want of cheapeners in the
market, I was happily shielded from any temptation to break the
commandments.  Nevertheless, it might not have been prudent to let
her see in what contempt her charms were held: for which reason I
forced my natural politeness so far, as to talk to her in a style not
to cut off all hope of my more serious advances.  I flattered myself
then, that I had found favor in the eyes of an old dresser to the
stage: but pride was destined to have a fall, even on so humble an
occasion.  The domestic trickster did not sharpen her allurements
from any longing for my pretty person; her design in subduing me to
the little soft god was to enlist me for the purposes of her
mistress, to whom she had sworn so passive an obedience, that she
would have sold her eternal self to the old chapman, who first set up
the trade of sin, rather than have disappointed her slightest wishes.
My vain conceit was sufficiently evident on the very next morning,
when I carried an Ovidian letter from my master to Euphrasia.  The
lady gave me an affable reception, and made a thousand pretty
speeches, echoed from the practised lips of her chambermaid.  The
expression of my countenance was peculiarly interesting to the one:
but that within which passeth show was the flattering theme of the
other.  According to their account, the fortunate Don Gonzales had
picked up a treasure.  In short, my praises ran so high, that I began
to think worse of myself than I had ever done in the whole course of
my life.  Their motive was sufficiently obvious; but I was determined
to play at diamond cut diamond.  The simper of a simpleton is no bad
countermine to the attack of a sharper.  These ladies under favor
were of the latter description, and they soon began to open their
batteries.

Hark you, Gil Blas! said Euphrasia; fortune declares in your favor if
you do not balk her.  Let us put our heads together, my good friend.
Don Gonzales is old, and a good deal shaken in constitution; so that
a very little fever, in the hands of a very great doctor, would carry
him to a better place.  Let us take time by the forelock, and ply our
arts so busily as to secure to me the largest slice of his effects.
If I prosper, you shall not starve, I promise you; and my bare word
is a better security than all the deeds and conveyances of all the
lawyers in Madrid.  Madam, answered I, you have but to command me.
Give me my commission on your muster-roll, and you shall have no
reason to complain either of my cowardice or contumacy.  So be it
then, replied she.  You must watch your master, and bring me an
account of all his comings and goings.  When you are chatting
together in his more familiar moments, never fail to lead the
conversation on the subject of our sex; and then by an artful, but
seemingly natural transition, take occasion to say all the good you
can invent of me.  Ring Euphrasia in his ears till all the house
reëchoes.  I would counsel you besides to keep a wary eye on all that
passes in the Pacheco family.  If you catch any relation of Don
Gonzales sneaking about him, with a design on the inheritance, bring
me word instantly: that is all you have to do, and trust me for
sinking, burning, and destroying him in less than no time.  I have
ferreted out the weak side of all your master's relations long ago;
they are each of them to be made ridiculous in some shape or other;
so that the nephews and cousins, after sitting to me for their
portraits, are already turned with their faces to the wall.

It was evident by these instructions, with many more to the same time
and tune, that Euphrasia was one of those ladies whose partialities
all lean to the side of elderly inamoratos, with more money than wit.
Not long before, Don Gonzales, who could refuse nothing to the tender
passion, had sold an estate; and she pocketed the cash.  Not a day
passed but she got some little personal remembrance out of him; and
besides all this, a corner of his will was the ultimate object of her
speculation.  I affected to engage hand over head in their infamous
plot; and if I must confess all without mental reservation, it was
almost a moot point, on my return home, on which side of the cause I
should take a brief.  There was on either a profitable alternative;
whether to join in fleecing my master, or to merit his gratitude by
rescuing him from the plunderers.  Conscience, however, seemed to
have some little concern in the determination; it was quite
ridiculous to choose the by-path of villany, when there was a better
toll to be taken on the highway of honesty.  Besides, Euphrasia had
dealt too much in generals; an arithmetical definition of so much for
so much has more meaning in it than "all the wealth of the Indies;"
and to this shrewd reflection, perhaps, was owing my uncorrupted
probity.  Thus did I resolve to signalize my zeal in the service of
Don Gonzales, in the persuasion that if I was lucky enough to disgust
the worshipper by befouling his idol, it would turn to very good
account.  On a statement of debtor and creditor between the right and
the wrong side of the action, the money balance was visibly in favor
of virtue, not to mention the delights of a fair and irreproachable
character.

If vice so often assumes the semblance of its contrary, why should
not hypocrisy now and then change sides for variety?  I held myself
up to Euphrasia for a thorough swindler.  She was dupe enough to
believe that I was incessantly talking of her to my master; and
thereupon I wove a tissue of frippery and falsehood, which imposed on
her for sterling truth.  She had so completely given herself up to my
insinuations, as to believe me her convert, her disciple, her
confederate.  The better still to carry on this fraud upon fraud, I
affected to languish for Beatrice: and she, in ecstasy at her age to
see a young fellow at her skirts, did not much trouble herself about
my sincerity, if I did but play my part with vigor and address.  When
we were in the presence of our princesses, my master in the parlor
and myself in the kitchen, the effect was that of two different
pictures, but of the same school.  Don Gonzales, dry as touchwood,
with all its inflammability, and nothing but its smother, seemed a
fitter subject for extreme unction than for amorous parley; while my
little pet, in proportion to the violence of my flame, niggled,
nudged, toyed, and romped, like a school-girl in vacation; and no
wonder she knew her lesson so pat, for the old coquette had been
upwards of forty years in the form.  She had finished her studies
under certain professors of gallantry, whose art of pleasing becomes
the more critical by practice; till they die under the accumulated
experience of two or three generations.

It was not enough for me to go every evening with my master to
Euphrasia's: it was sometimes my lounge even in daytime.  But let me
pop my head in at what hour I would, that forbidden creature man was
never there, nor even a woman of any description, that might not be
just as easily expressed as understood.  There was not the least
loop-hole for a paramour!--a circumstance not a little perplexing to
one who could not readily believe, that so pretty a bale of goods
could submit to a strict monopoly, by such a dealer as Don Gonzales.
This opinion undoubtedly was formed on a near acquaintance with
female nature, as will be apparent in the sequel; for the fair
Euphrasia, while waiting for my master's translation, fortified
herself with patience in the arms of a lover, with some little
fellow-feeling for the frailties of her age.

One morning I was carrying, according to custom, a note to this
peerless pattern of perfection.  There certainly were, or I was not
standing in the room, the feet of a man ensconced behind the
tapestry.  Out slunk I, just as if I had no eyes in my head; yet,
though such a discovery was nothing but what might have been
expected, neither was the piper to be paid out of my pocket; my
feelings were a good deal staggered at the breach of faith.  Ah,
traitress! exclaimed I, with virtuous indignation, abandoned
Euphrasia!  Not satisfied to humbug a silly old gentleman with a tale
of love, you share his property in your person with another, and add
profligacy to dissimulation!  But to be sure, on afterthoughts, I was
but a greenhorn when I took on so for such a trivial occurrence!  It
was rather a subject for mirth than for moral reflection, and
perfectly justified by the way of the world; the languid, embargoed
commerce of my master's amorous moments had need be filliped by a
trade in some more merchantable wares.  At all events it would have
been better to have held my tongue, than to have laid hold on such an
opportunity of playing the faithful servant.  But instead of
tempering my zeal with discretion, nothing would serve the turn but
taking up the wrongs of Don Gonzales in the spirit of chivalry.  On
this high principle, I made a circumstantial report of what I had
seen, with the addition of the attempt made by Euphrasia to seduce me
from my good faith.  I gave it in her own words without the least
reserve, and put him in the way of knowing all that was to be known
of his mistress.  He was struck all in a heap by my intelligence, and
a faint flash of indignation on his faded cheek seemed to give
security that the lady's infidelity would not go unpunished.  Enough,
Gil Blas, said he; I am infinitely obliged by your attachment to my
service, and your probity is very acceptable to me.  I will go to
Euphrasia this very moment.  I will overwhelm her with reproaches,
and break at once with the ungrateful creature.  With these words, he
actually bent his way to the subject of his anger, and dispensed with
my attendance, from the kind motive of sparing me the awkwardness
which my presence during their explanation would have occasioned to
my feelings.

I longed for my master's return with all the impatience of an
interested person.  There could not be a doubt but that with his
strong grounds of complaint, he would return completely disentangled
from the snares of his nymph.  In this thought I extolled and
magnified myself for my good deed.  What could be more flattering
than the thanks of the kindred who were naturally to inherit after
Don Gonzales, when they should be informed that their relative was no
longer the puppet of a figure-dance so hostile to their interests?
It was not to be supposed but that such a friend would be remembered,
and that my merits would at last be distinguished from those of other
serving-men, who are usually more disposed to encourage their masters
in licentiousness, than to draw them off to habits of decency.  I was
always of an aspiring temper, and thought to have passed for the
Joseph or the Scipio of the servants' hall; but so fascinating an
idea was only to be indulged for an hour or two.  The founder of my
fortunes came home.  My friend, said he, I have had a very sharp
brush with Euphrasia.  She insists on it that you have trumped up a
cock-and-bull story.  If their word is to be taken, you are no better
than an impostor, a hireling in the pay of my nephews, for whose sake
you have set all your wits at work to bring about a quarrel between
her and me.  I have seen the real tears, made of water, run down in
floods from her poor dear eyes.  She has vowed to me as solemnly as
if I had been her confessor, that she never made any overtures to you
in her life, and that she does not know what man is.  Beatrice, who
seems a simple, innocent sort of girl, is exactly in the same story,
so that I could not but believe them and be pacified, whether I would
or no.

How then, sir? interrupted I, in accents of undissembled sorrow, do
you question my sincerity?  Do you distrust .... No, my good lad,
interrupted he again in his turn; I will do you ample justice.  I do
not suspect you of being in league with my nephews.  I am satisfied
that all you have done has been for my good, and own myself much
obliged to you for it; but appearances are apt to mislead, so that
perhaps you did not see in reality what you took it into your head
that you saw; and in that case, only consider yourself how offensive
your charge must be to Euphrasia.  Yet, let that be as it will, she
is a creature whom I cannot help loving in spite of my senses; so
that the sacrifice she demands must be made, and that sacrifice is no
less than your dismission.  I lament it very much, my poor dear Gil
Blas, and if that will be any satisfaction to you, my consent was
wrung from me most unwillingly; but there was no saying nay.  With
one thing, however, you may comfort yourself, you shall not be sent
away with empty pockets.  Nay, more, I mean to turn you over to a
lady of my acquaintance, where you will live to your liking.

I was not a little mortified to find all my noble acts and motives
end in my own confusion.  I gave a left-handed blessing to Euphrasia,
and wept over the weakness of Don Gonzales, to be so foolishly
infatuated by her.  The kind-hearted old gentleman felt within
himself that in turning me adrift at the peremptory demand of his
mistress, he was not performing the most manly action of his life.
For this reason, as a set-off against his hen-pecked cowardice, and
that I might the more easily swallow this bitter dose, he gave me
fifty ducats, and took me with him next morning to the Marchioness of
Chaves, telling that lady before my face, that I was a young man of
unexceptionably good character, and very high in his good graces, but
that as certain family reasons prevented him from continuing me on
his own establishment, he should esteem it as a favor if she would
take me on hers.  After such an introduction, I was retained at once
as her appendage, and found myself, I scarcely knew how, established
in another household.




_CHAPTER VIII._

_THE MARCHIONESS OF CHAVES: HER CHARACTER, AND THAT OF HER COMPANY._

The Marchioness of Chaves was a widow of five and thirty, tall,
handsome, and well-proportioned.  She enjoyed an income of ten
thousand ducats, without the encumbrance of a nursery.  I never met
with a lady of fewer words, nor one of a more solemn aspect.  Yet
this exterior did not prevent her from being set up as the cleverest
woman in all Madrid.  Her great assemblies, attended by people of the
first quality, and by men of letters who made a coffee-house of her
apartments, contributed perhaps more than anything she said to give
her the reputation she had acquired.  But this is a point on which it
is not my province to decide.  I have only to relate as her
historian, that her name carried with it the idea of superior genius,
and that her house was called, to distinguish it from the ordinary
societies in town, The Fashionable Institution for Literature, Taste,
and Science.

In point of fact, not a day passed, but there were readings there,
sometimes of dramatic pieces, and sometimes in other branches of
poetry.  But the subjects were always selected from the graver muses;
wit and humor were held in the most sovereign contempt.  Comedy,
however spirited; a novel, however pointed in its satire or ingenious
in its fable, such light productions as these were treated as weak
efforts of the brain, without the slightest claim to patronage;
whereas, on the contrary, the most microscopical work in the serious
style, whether ode, pastoral, or sonnet, was trumpeted to the skies
as the most illustrious effort of a learned and poetical age.  It not
unfrequently fell out, that the public reversed the decrees of this
chancery for genius: nay, they had sometimes the gross ill-breeding
to hiss the very pieces which had been sanctioned by this court of
criticism.

I was chief manager of the establishment, and my office consisted in
getting the drawing-room ready to receive the company, in setting the
chairs in order for the gentlemen, and the sofas for the ladies;
after which, I took my station on the landing-place to bawl out the
names of the visitors as they came up stairs, and usher them into the
circle.  The first day, an old piece of family furniture, who was
stationed by my side in the ante-chamber, gave me their description
with some humor, after I had shown them into the room.  His name was
Andrew Molina.  He had a good deal of mother's wit, with a flowing
vein of satire, much gravity of sarcasm, and a happy knack at hitting
off characters.  The first comer was a bishop.  I roared out his
lordship's name, and as soon as he was gone in, my nomenclator told
me--That prelate is a very curious gentleman.  He has some little
influence at court, but wants to persuade the world that he has a
great deal.  He presses his service on every soul he comes near, and
then leaves them completely in the lurch.  One day he met with a
gentleman in the presence chamber who bowed to him.  He laid hold of
him, and squeezing his hand, assured him, with an inundation of
civilities, that he was altogether devoted to his lordship.  For
goodness sake, do not spare me; I shall not die in my bed without
having first found an opportunity of making you my debtor.  The
gentleman returned his thanks with all becoming expressions of
gratitude, and when they were at some distance from one another, the
obsequious churchman said to one of his attendants in waiting, I
ought to know that man; I have some floating, indistinct idea of
having seen him somewhere.

Next after the bishop, came the son of a grandee.  When I had
introduced him into my lady's room, This nobleman, said Molina, is
also an original in his way.  You are to take notice that he often
pays a visit, for the express purpose of talking over some urgent
business with the friend on whom he calls, and goes away again
without once thinking on the topic he came solely to discuss.  But,
added my showman on the sight of two ladies, here are Donna Angela de
Penafiel and Donna Margaretta de Montalvan.  This pair have not a
feature of resemblance to each other.  Donna Margaretta prides
herself on her philosophical acquirements; she will hold her head as
high as the most learned head among the doctors of Salamanca, nor
will the wisdom of her conceit ever give up the point to the best
reasons they can render.  As for Donna Angela, she does not affect
the learned lady though she has taken no unsuccessful pains in the
improvement of her mind.  Her manner of talking is rational and
proper, her ideas are novel and ingenious, expressed in polite,
significant, and natural terms.  This latter portrait is delightful,
said I to Molina; but the other, in my opinion, is scarcely to be
tolerated in the softer sex.  Not over bearable indeed! replied he
with a sneer: even in men it does but expose them to the lash of
satire.  The good marchioness herself, our honored lady, continued
he, she too has a sort of a philosophical looseness.  There will be
fine chopping of logic there to-day!  God grant the mysteries of
religion may not be invaded by these disputants.

As he was finishing this last sentence, in came a withered bit of
mortality, with a grave and crabbed look.  My companion showed him no
mercy.  This fellow, said he, is one of those pompous, unbending
spirits, who think to pass for men of profound genius, under favor of
a few commonplaces extracted out of Seneca; yet they are but shallow
coxcombs when one comes to examine them narrowly.  Then followed in
the train a spruce figure, with tolerable person and address, to say
nothing of a troubled air and manner, which always supposes a
plentiful stock of self-sufficiency.  I inquired who this was.  A
dramatic poet! said Molina.  He has manufactured a hundred thousand
verses in his time, which never brought him in the value of a groat;
but as a set-off against his metrical failure, he has feathered his
nest very warmly by six lines of humble prose: you will wonder by
what magic touch a fortune could be made...

And so I did; but a confounded noise upon the staircase put verse and
prose completely out of my head.  Good again! exclaimed my informer;
here is the licentiate Campanario.  He is his own harbinger before
ever he makes his appearance.  He sets out from the very street door
in a continued volley of conversation, and you hear how the alarm is
kept up till he makes his retreat.  In good sooth, the vaulted roof
reëchoed with the organ of the thundering licentiate, who at length
exhibited the case in which the pipes were contained.  He brought a
bachelor of his acquaintance by way of accompaniment, and there was
not a _sotto voce_ passage during the whole visit.  Signor
Campanario, said I to Molina, is to all appearance a man of very fine
conversation.  Yes, replied my sage instructor, the gentleman has his
lucky hits, and a sort of quaintness that might pass for humor; he
does very well in a mixed company.  But the worst of it is, that
incessant talking is one of his most pardonable errors.  He is a
little too apt to borrow from himself; and as those who are behind
the scenes are not to be dazzled by the tinsel of the property-man,
so we know how to separate a certain volubility and buffoonery of
manner from sterling wit and sense.  The greater part of his good
things would be thought very bad ones, if submitted, without their
concomitant grimaces, to the ordeal of a jest book.

Other groups passed before us, and Molina touched them with his wand.
The marchioness, too, came in for a magic rap over the knuckles.  Our
lady patroness, said he, is better than might be expected for a
female philosopher.  She is not dainty in her likings; and bating a
whim or two, it is no hard matter to give her satisfaction.  Wits and
women of quality seldom approach so near the atmosphere of good
sense; and for passion, she scarcely knows what it is.  Play and
gallantry are equally in her black books: dear conversation is her
first and sole delight.  To lead such a life would be little better
than penance to the common run of ladies.  Molina's character of my
mistress established her at once in my good graces.  And yet, in the
course of a few days, I could not help suspecting that, though not
dainty in her likings, she knew what passion was, and that a foul
copy of gallantry delighted her more than the fairest conversation.

One morning, during the mysteries of the toilet, there presented
himself to my notice a little fellow of forty, forbidding in his
aspect, more filthy if possible than Pedro de Moya the book-worm, and
verging in no marketable measure towards deformity, he told me he
wanted to speak with my lady marchioness.  On whose business? quoth
I.  On my own, quoth he, somewhat snappishly.  Tell her I am the
gentleman; ... she will understand you; ... about whom she was
talking yesterday with Donna Anna de Velasco.  I went before him into
my lady's apartment, and gave in his name.  The marchioness all at
once shrieked out her satisfaction, and ordered me to show him in.
It was not courtesy enough to point to a chair, and bid him sit down:
but the attendants, forsooth, her own maids about her person, were to
withdraw, so that the little hunchback, with better luck than falls
to the lot of many a taller man, had the field entirely to himself,
as lord paramount.  As for the girls and myself, we could not help
tittering a little at this uncouthly concerted duet, which lasted
nearly an hour: when my patroness dismissed his little lordship, with
such a profusion of farewells and God-be-with-you's, as sufficiently
evinced her thankfulness for the entertainment she had received.

The conversation had, in fact, been so edifying, that in the
afternoon she seized a private opportunity of whispering in my ear,
Gil Blas, when the short gentleman comes again, you may show him up
the back stairs; there is no need of parading him along a line of
staring servants.  I did as I was ordered.  When this epitome of
humanity knocked at the door, and that hour was no farther off than
the next morning, we threaded all the by-passages to the place of
assignation.  I played the same modest part two or three times in the
very innocence of my soul, without the most distant guess that the
material system could form any part of their philosophy.  But that
hound-like snuff at an ill construction, with which the devil has
armed the noses of the most charitable, put me on the scent of a very
whimsical game, and I concluded either that the marchioness had an
odd taste, or that crookback courted her as proxy to a better man.

Faith and troth, thought I, with all the impertinence of a hasty
opinion, if my mistress really likes a handsome fellow behind the
curtain, all is well; I forgive her her sins: but if she is stark mad
for such a monkey as this, to say the truth, there will be little
mercy for her on male or female tongues.  But how foully did I defame
my honored patroness!  The genius of magic had perched herself upon
the little conjurer's protuberant shoulder; and his skill having been
puffed off to the marchioness, who was just the right food for such
jugglers and their tricks, she held private conferences with him.
Under his tuition she was to command wealth and treasure, to build
castles in the air, to remove from place to place in an instant, to
reveal future events, to tell what is done in far countries, to call
the dead out of their graves, and terrify the world with many
miracles.  Seriously, and to give him his deserts, the scoundrel
lived on the folly of the public; and it has been confidently
asserted, that ladies of fashion have not in all ages and countries
been exempt from the credulity of their inferiors.




_CHAPTER IX._

_AN INCIDENT THAT PARTED GIL BLAS AND THE MARCHIONESS OF CHAVES.  THE
SUBSEQUENT DESTINATION OF THE FORMER._

For six months I lived with the Marchioness of Chaves, and, as it
must be admitted, on the fat of the land.  But fate, who thrusts
footmen as well as heroes into the world, with herself tied about
their necks, gave me a jog to be gone, and swore that I should stay
no longer in that family or in Madrid.  The adventure by which this
decree was announced shall be the subject of the ensuing narrative.

In my mistress's female squad there was a nymph named Portia.  To say
nothing of her youth and beauty, it was her meek demeanor and good
repute that captivated me, who had yet to learn that none but the
brave deserves the fair.  The marchioness's secretary, as proud as a
prime minister, and as jealous as the Grand Turk, was caught in the
same trap as myself.  No sooner did he cast an unlucky squint at my
advances, than, without waiting to see how Portia might chance to
fancy them, he determined pell-mell to have a tilt with me.  To
forward this ghostly enterprise, he gave me an appointment one
morning in a place sadly impervious to all seasonable interruption.
Yet as he was a little go-by-the-ground, scarcely up to my shoulders,
and apparently of feeble frame, he did not look like a very dangerous
antagonist; so away I went with some little courage to the appointed
spot.  Thinking to come off with flying colors, I anticipated the
effect of my bravery on the heart of Portia; but as it turned out, I
was gathering my laurels before they had budded.  The little
secretary, who had been practising for two or three years at the
fencing-school, disarmed me like a very baby, and holding the point
of his sword up to my throat, Prepare thyself, said he, to balance
thine accounts with this world, and open a correspondence with the
next, or give me thy rascally word to leave the Marchioness of Chaves
this very day, and never more to think of my Portia.  I gave him my
rascally word, and was honest enough not to think of breaking it.
There was an awkwardness in showing my face before the servants of
the family, after having been worsted; and especially before the high
and mighty princess who had been the theme of our tournament.  I only
returned home to get together my baggage and wages, and on that very
day set off towards Toledo, with a purse pretty well lined, and a
knapsack at my back with my wardrobe and movables.  Though my
rascally word was not given to abandon the purlieus of Madrid, I
considered it as a matter of delicacy to disappear, at least for a
few seasons.  My resolution was to make the tour of Spain, and to
halt first at one town and then at another.  My ready money, thought
I, will carry me a good way: I shall not call about me very
prodigally.  When my stock is exhausted, I can but go into service
again.  A lad of my versatility will find places in plenty, whenever
it may be convenient to look out for them.

It was particularly my wish to see Toledo: and I got thither after
three days' journey.  My quarters were at a respectable house of
entertainment, where I was taken for a gentleman of some figure,
under favor of my best clothes, in which I did not fail to bedizen
myself.  With the pick-tooth carelessness of a lounger, the
affectation of a puppy, and the pertness of a wit, it remained with
me to dictate the terms of an arrangement with some very pretty women
who infested that neighborhood; but, as a hint had been given me that
the pocket was the high road to their good graces, my amorous
enthusiasm was a little flattered, and, as it was no part of my plan
to domesticate myself in any one place, after having seen all the
lions at Toledo, I started one morning with the dawn, and took the
road to Cuença, intending to go to Arragon.  On the second day I went
into an inn which stood open to receive me by the road side.  Just as
I was beginning to recruit the carnal department of my nature, in
came a party belonging to the Holy Brotherhood.  These gentlemen
called for wine, and set in for a drinking bout.  Over their cups
they were conning the description of a young man, whom they had
orders to arrest.  The spark, said one of them, is not above three
and twenty: he has long black hair, is well grown, with an aquiline
nose, and rides a bay horse.

I heard their talk without seeming to be a listener; and, in fact,
did not trouble my head much about it.  They remained in their
quarters, and I pursued my journey.  Scarcely had I gone a quarter of
a mile, before I met a young gentleman on horseback, as personable as
need be, and mounted as described by the officers.  Faith and troth,
thought I within myself, this is the very identical man.  Black hair
and an aquiline nose!  One cannot help doing a good office when it
comes in one's way.  Sir, said I, give me leave to ask you whether
you have not some disagreeable business on your hands?  The young
man, without returning any answer, looked at me from head to foot,
and seemed startled at my question.  I assured him it was not wanton
curiosity that induced me to address him.  He was satisfied of that
when I related all I had heard at the inn.  My unknown benefactor,
said he, I will not deny to you that I have reason to believe myself
actually the person of whom the officers are in quest; therefore I
shall take another road to avoid them.  In my opinion, answered I, it
would be better to look out for a spot where you may be in safety,
and under shelter from a storm which is brewing, and will soon pour
down upon our heads.  Without loss of time we discovered and made for
a row of trees, forming a natural avenue, which led us to the foot of
a mountain, where we found a hermitage.

There was a large and deep grotto which time had worn away into the
heart of the rock; and the hand of man had added a rude front built
of pebbles and shell-work, covered all over with turf.  The adjacent
grounds were strewed with a thousand sorts of flowers, which
scattered their perfume; and one was pleased to see, hard by the
grotto, a small fissure in the mountain, whence a spring rippled with
a tinkling noise, and poured its pellucid stream along the meadow.
At the entrance of this solitary abode stood a venerable hermit,
seemingly weighed down with years.  He supported himself with one
hand upon a staff, and held a rosary of large beads with the other,
composed of at least twenty rows.  His head was almost lost in a
brown woollen cap with long ears; and his beard, whiter than snow,
swept down in aged majesty to his waist.  We advanced towards him.
Father, said I, is it your pleasure to allow us shelter from the
threatening storm?  Come in, my sons, replied the hermit, after
examining me attentively; this hermitage is at your service, to
occupy it during pleasure.  As for your horse, added he, pointing to
the court-yard of his mansion, he will be very well off there.  My
companion disposed of the animal accordingly, and we followed the old
man into the grotto.

No sooner had we got in than a heavy rain fell, with a terrific storm
of thunder and lightning.  The hermit threw himself upon his knees
before a consecrated image, fastened to the wall, and we followed the
example of our host.  Our devotions ceased with the subsiding of the
storm; but as the rain continued, though with diminished violence,
and night was not far distant, the old man said to us, My sons, you
had better not pursue your journey in such weather, unless your
affairs are pressing.  We answered with one consent, that we had
nothing to hinder us from staying there, but the fear of incommoding
him; but that if there was room for us in the hermitage, we would
thank him for a night's lodging.  You may have it without
inconvenience, answered the hermit, at least the inconvenience will
be all your own.  Your accommodation will be rough, and your meal
such as a recluse has to offer.

With this cordial welcome to a homely board, the holy personage
seated us at a little table, and set before us a few vegetables, a
crust of bread, and a pitcher of water.  My sons, resumed he, you
behold my ordinary fare, but to-day I will make a feast in
hospitality towards you.  So saying, he fetched a little cheese and
some nuts, which he threw down upon the table.  The young man, whose
appetite was not keen, felt but little tempted by his entertainment.
I perceive, said the hermit to him, that you are accustomed to better
tables than mine, or rather that sensuality has vitiated your natural
relish.  I have been in the world like you.  The utmost ingenuity of
the culinary art, whether to stimulate or soothe the palate, was
exerted by turns for my gratification.  But since I have lived in
solitude, my taste has recovered its simplicity.  Now, vegetables,
fruit, and milk, are my greatest dainties; in a word, I keep an
antediluvian table.

While he was haranguing after this fashion, the young man fell into a
deep musing.  The hermit was aware of his inattention.  My son, said
he, something weighs upon your spirits.  May we not be informed what
disturbs you?  Open your heart to me.  Curiosity is not my motive for
questioning you, but charity, and a desire to be of service.  I am at
a time of life to give advice, and you perhaps are under
circumstances to stand in need of it.  Yes, father, replied the
gentleman with a sigh, I doubtless do stand in need of it, and will
follow yours, since you are so good as to offer it; I cannot suppose
there is any risk in unbosoming myself to a man like you.  No, my
son, said the old man, you have nothing to fear, it is under more
stately roofs that confidences are betrayed.  On this assurance the
cavalier began his story.




_CHAPTER X._

_THE HISTORY OF DON ALPHONSO AND THE FAIR SERAPHINA._

I will attempt no disguise from you, my venerable friend, nor from
this gentleman who completes my audience.  After the generosity of
his conduct towards me, I should be in the wrong to distrust him.
You shall know my misfortunes from their beginning.  I am a native of
Madrid, and came into the world mysteriously.  An officer of the
German guard, Baron Steinbach by name, returning home one evening,
espied a bundle of fair linen at the foot of his staircase.  He took
it up and carried it to his wife's apartment, where it turned out to
be a new-born infant, wrapped up in very handsome swaddling-clothes,
with a note containing an assurance that it belonged to persons of
condition, who would come forward and own it at some future period;
and the further information that it had been baptized by the name of
Alphonso.  I was that unfortunate stranger in the world, and this is
all that I know about myself.  Whether honor or profligacy was the
motive of the exposure, the helpless child was equally the victim;
whether my unhappy mother wanted to get rid of me, to conceal an
habitual course of scandalous amours, or whether she had made a
single deviation from the path of virtue with a faithless lover, and
had been obliged to protect her fame at the expense of nature and the
maternal feelings.

However this might be, the baron and his wife were touched by my
destitute condition, and resolved, as they had no children of their
own, to bring me up under the name of Don Alphonso.  As I grew in
years and stature their attachment to me strengthened.  My manners,
genteel before strangers and affectionate towards them, were the
theme of their fondest panegyric.  In short, they loved me as if I
had been their own.  Masters of every description were provided for
me.  My education became their leading object; and far from waiting
impatiently till my parents should come forward, they seemed, on the
contrary, to wish that my birth might always remain a mystery.  As
soon as the Baron thought me old enough to bear arms, he sent me into
the service.  With my ensign's commission, a genteel and suitable
equipment was provided for me; and, the more effectually to animate
me in the career of glory, my patron pointed out that the path of
honor was open to every adventurer, and that the renown of a warrior
would be so much the more creditable to me, as I should owe it to
none but myself.  At the same time he laid open to me the
circumstances of my birth, which he had hitherto concealed.  As I had
passed for his son in Madrid, and had actually thought myself so, it
must be owned that this communication gave me some uneasiness.  I
could not then, nor can I even now, think of it without a sense of
shame.  In proportion as the innate feelings of a gentleman bear
testimony to the birth of one, am I mortified at being rejected and
renounced by the unnatural authors of my being.

I went to serve in the Low Countries, but peace was concluded in a
short time; and Spain finding herself without assailants, though not
without assassins, I returned to Madrid, where I received fresh marks
of affection from the Baron and his wife.  Rather more than two
months after my return, a little page came into my room one morning,
and presented me with a note couched nearly in the following terms:
"I am neither ugly nor crooked, and yet you often see me at my window
without the tribute of a glance.  This conduct is little in unison
with the spirit of your physiognomy, and so far stings me to revenge
that I will make you love me if possible."

On the perusal of this epistle, there could be no doubt but it came
from a widow, by name Leonora, who lived opposite our house, and had
the character of a very great coquette.  Hereupon I examined my
little messenger, who had a mind to be on the reserve at first, but a
ducat in hand opened the flood-gates of his intelligence.  He even
took charge of an answer to his mistress, confessing my guilt, and
intimating that its punishment was far advanced.

I was not insensible to a conquest even of this kind.  For the rest
of the day, home and my window-seat were the grand attraction; and
the lady seemed to have fallen in love with her window-seat too.  I
made signals.  She returned them; and on the very next day sent me
word by her little Mercury, that if I would be in the street on the
following night between eleven and twelve, I might converse with her
at a window on the ground floor.  Though I did not feel myself very
much captivated by so coming on a kind of widow, it was impossible
not to send such an answer as if I was; and a sort of amorous
curiosity made me as impatient as if I had really been in love.  In
the dusk of the evening, I went sauntering up and down the Prado till
the hour of assignation.  Before I could get to my appointment, a man
mounted on a fine horse alighted near me, and coming up with a
peremptory air, Sir, said he, are not you the son of Baron Steinbach?
I answered in the affirmative.  You are the person then, resumed he,
who were to meet Leonora at her window to-night?  I have seen her
letters and your answers; her page has put them into my hands, and I
have followed you this evening from your own house hither, to let you
know you have a rival whose pride is not a little wounded at a
competition with yourself in an affair of the heart.  It would be
unnecessary to say more.  We are in a retired place; let us therefore
draw, unless, to avoid the chastisement in store for you, you will
give me your word to break off all connection with Leonora.
Sacrifice in my favor all your hopes and interest, or your life must
be the forfeit.  It had been better, said I, to have insured my
generosity by good manners, than to extort my compliance by menaces.
I might have granted to your request what I must refuse to this
insolent demand.

[Illustration: Don Alphonso and Baron Steinbach]

Well then, resumed he, tying up his horse and preparing for the
encounter, let us settle our dispute like men.  Little could a person
of my condition have stomached the debasement of a request, to a man
of your quality.  Nine out of ten in my rank would, under such
circumstances, have taken their revenge on terms of less honor but
more safety.  I felt myself exasperated at this last insinuation, so
that, seeing he had already drawn his sword, mine did not linger in
the scabbard.  We fell on one another with so much fury, that the
engagement did not last long.  Whether his attack was made with too
much heat, or my skill in fencing was superior, he soon received a
mortal wound.  He staggered, and dropped dead upon the spot.  In such
a situation, having no alternative but an immediate escape, I mounted
the horse of my antagonist, and went off in the direction of Toledo.
There was no venturing to return to Baron Steinbach's, since, besides
the danger of the attempt, the narrative of my adventure from my own
mouth would only afflict him the more, so that nothing was so
eligible as an immediate decampment from Madrid.

Chewing the cud of my own melancholy reflection, I travelled onwards
the remainder of the night and all the next morning.  But about noon
it became necessary to stop, both for the sake of my horse and to
avoid the insupportable fierceness of the mid-day heat.  I staid in a
village till sunset, and then, intending to reach Toledo without
drawing bit, went on my way.  I had already got two leagues beyond
Illescas, when, about midnight, a storm like that of to-day overtook
me as I was jogging along the road.  There was a garden wall at some
little distance, and I rode up to it.  For want of any more
commodious shelter, my horse's station and my own were arranged, as
comfortably as circumstances would admit, near the door of a
summer-house at the end of the wall, with a balcony over it.  Leaning
against the door, I discovered it to be open, owing, as I thought, to
the negligence of the servants.  Having dismounted, less from
curiosity than for the sake of a better standing, as the rain had
been very troublesome under the balcony, I went into the lower part
of the summer-house, leading my horse by the bridle.

My amusement during the storm was in reconnoitring my quarters; and
though I had nothing to form an opinion by, but the lurid gleams of
the lightning, it was very evident that such a house must belong to
some family above the common.  I was waiting anxiously till the rain
abated, to set forward again on my journey; but a great light at a
distance made me change my purpose.  Leaving my horse in the
summer-house, with the precaution of fastening the door, I made for
the light, in the assurance that they were not all gone to bed in the
house, and with the intention of requesting a lodging for the night.
After crossing several walks, I came to a saloon, and here, too, the
door was left open.  On my entrance, from the magnificence so
handsomely displayed by the light of a fine crystal lustre, it was
easy to conclude that this must be the residence of some illustrious
nobleman.  The pavement was of marble, the wainscot richly carved and
gilt, the proportions of architecture tastefully preserved, and the
ceiling evidently adorned by the masterpieces of the first artists in
fresco.  But what particularly engaged my attention, was a great
number of busts, and those of Spanish heroes, supported on jasper
pedestals, and ranged round the saloon.  There was opportunity enough
for examining all this splendor, since there was not even a
foot-fall, nor the shadow of any one gliding along the passage,
though my ears and eyes were incessantly on the watch for some
inhabitant of this fairy desert.

On one side of the saloon there was a door ajar; by pushing it a
little wider open, I discovered a range of apartments, with a light
only in the farthest.  What is to be done now? thought I within
myself.  Shall I go back, or take the liberty of marching forward,
even to that chamber?  To be sure, it was obvious that the most
prudent step would be to make good my retreat; but curiosity was not
to be repelled, or rather, to speak more truly, my star was in its
ascendant.  Advancing boldly from room to room, at length I reached
that where the light was.  It was a wax taper on a marble slab, in a
magnificent candlestick.  The first object that caught my eye was the
gay furniture of this summer abode; but soon afterwards, casting a
look towards a bed, of which the curtains were half undrawn on
account of the heat, an object arrested my attention, which engrossed
it with the deepest interest.  A young lady, in spite of the
thunderclaps which had been pealing round her, was sleeping there,
motionless and undisturbed.  I approached her very gently, and by the
light of the taper I had seized, a complexion and features the most
dazzling were submitted to my gaze.  My spirits were all afloat at
the discovery.  A sensation of transport and delight came over me;
but however my feelings might harass my own heart, my conviction of
her high birth checked every presumptuous hope, and awe obtained a
complete victory over desire.  While I was drinking in floods of
adoration at the shrine of her beauty, the goddess of my homage awoke.

You may well suppose her consternation, at seeing a man, an utter
stranger, in her bed-chamber, and at midnight.  She was terrified at
this strange appearance, and uttered a loud shriek.  I did my best to
restore her composure, and throwing myself on my knees in the
humblest posture, Madam, said I, fear nothing.  My business here is
not to hurt you.  I was going on, but her alarm was so great that she
was incapable of hearing my excuses.  She called her women with a
most vehement importunity, and as she could get no answer, she threw
over her a thin night-gown at the foot of the bed, rushed rapidly out
of the room, and darted into the apartments I had crossed, still
calling her female establishment about her, as well as a younger
sister whom she had under her care.  I looked for nothing less than a
posse of strapping footmen who were likely, without hearing my
defence, to execute summary justice on so audacious a culprit; but by
good luck, at least for me, her cries were to no purpose; they only
roused an old domestic, who would have been but a sorry knight had
any ravisher or magician invaded her repose.  Nevertheless, assuming
somewhat of courage from his presence, she asked me haughtily who I
was, by what inlet and to what purpose I had presumptuously gained
admission into her house.  I began then to enter on my exculpation,
and had no sooner declared that the open door of the summer-house in
the garden had invited my entrance, than she exclaimed, as if
thunderstruck, Just heaven! what an idea darts across my mind!

As she uttered these words, she caught at the wax light on the table;
then ran through all the apartments one after another, without
finding either her attendants or her sister.  She remarked, too, that
all their personals and wardrobe were carried off.  With such a
comment on her hasty suspicions, she came up to me, and said, in the
hurried accent of suspense and perturbation, Traitor! add not
hypocrisy to your other crimes.  Chance has not brought you hither.
You are in the train of Don Ferdinand de Leyva, and are an accomplice
in his guilt.  But hope not to escape; there are still people enough
about me to secure you.  Madam, said I, do not confound me with your
enemies.  Don Ferdinand de Leyva is a stranger to me; I do not even
know who you are.  You see before you an outcast, whom an affair of
honor has compelled to fly from Madrid; and I swear by whatever is
most sacred among men, that had not a storm overtaken me, I should
never have set my foot over your threshold.  Entertain, then, a more
favorable opinion of me.  So far from suspecting me for an accomplice
in any plot against you, believe me ready to enlist in your defence,
and to revenge your wrongs.  These last words, and still more the
sincere tone in which they were delivered, convinced the lady of my
innocence, and she seemed no longer to look on me as her enemy; but
if her anger abated, it was only that her grief might sway more
absolutely.  She began weeping most bitterly.  Her tears called forth
my sympathy, and my affliction was scarcely less poignant than her
own, though the cause of this contagious sorrow was still to be
ascertained.  Yet it was not enough to mingle my tears with hers; in
my impatience to become her defender and avenger, an impulse of
terrific fury came over me.  Madam, exclaimed I, what outrage have
you sustained?  Let me know it, and your injuries are mine.  Would
you have me hunt out Don Ferdinand, and stab him to the heart?  Only
tell me on whom your justice would fall, and they shall suffer.  You
have only to give the word.  Whatever dangers, whatever certain evils
may be attendant on the execution of your orders, the unknown, whom
you thought to be in league with your enemies, will brave them all in
your cause.

This enraptured devotion surprised the lady, and stopped the flowing
of her tears.  Ah! sir, said she, forgive this suspicion, and
attribute it to the blindness of my cruel fate.  A nobility of
sentiment like this speaks at once to the heart of Seraphina; and
while it undeceives, makes me the less repine at a stranger being
witness of an affront offered to my family.  Yes, I own my error, and
revolt not, unknown as you are, from your proffered aid.  But the
death of Don Ferdinand is not what I require.  Well, then, madam,
resumed I, of what nature are the services you would enjoin me?  Sir,
replied Seraphina, the ground of my complaint is this.  Don Ferdinand
de Leyva is enamoured of my sister Julia, whom he met with by
accident at Toledo, where we for the most part reside.  Three months
since, he asked her in marriage of the Count de Polan, my father, who
refused his consent on account of an old grudge subsisting between
the families.  My sister is not yet fifteen; she must have been
indiscreet enough to follow the evil counsels of my woman, whom Don
Ferdinand has doubtless bribed; and this daring ruffian, advertised
of our being alone at our country-house, has taken the opportunity of
carrying off Julia.  At least I should like to know what hiding-place
he has chosen to deposit her in, that my father and my brother, who
have been these two months at Madrid, may take their measures
accordingly.  For heaven's sake, added she, give yourself the trouble
of examining the neighborhood of Toledo, an act so heinous cannot
escape detection, and my family will owe you a debt of everlasting
gratitude.  The lady was little aware how unseasonable an employment
she was thrusting upon me.  My escape from Castile could not be too
soon effected; and yet how should such a reflection ever enter into
her head, when it was completely superseded in mine by a more
powerful suggestion?  Delighted at finding myself important to the
most lovely creature in the universe, I caught at the commission with
eagerness, and promised to acquit myself of it with equal zeal and
industry.  In fact, I did not wait for daybreak, to go about
fulfilling my engagement.  A hasty leave of Seraphina gave me
occasion to beg her pardon for the alarm I had caused her, and to
assure her that she should speedily hear somewhat of my adventure.  I
went out as I came in, but so wrapped up in admiration of the lady,
that it was palpable I was completely caught.  My sense of this truth
was the more confirmed by the eagerness with which I embarked in her
cause, and by the romantic, gayly-colored bubbles which my passion
blew.  It struck my fancy that Seraphina, though engrossed by her
affliction, had remarked the hasty birth of my love, without being
displeased at the discovery.  I even flattered myself that if I could
furnish her with any certain intelligence of her sister, and the
business should terminate in any degree to her satisfaction, my part
in it would be remembered to my advantage.

Don Alphonso broke the thread of his discourse at this passage, and
said to our aged host, I beg your pardon, father, if the fulness of
my passion should lead me to dilate too long upon particulars,
wearisome and uninteresting to a stranger.  No, my son, replied the
hermit, such particulars are not wearisome: I am interested to know
the state and progress of your passion for the young lady you are
speaking of; my counsels will be influenced by the minute detail you
are giving me.

With my fancy heated by these seductive images, resumed the young
man, I was two days hunting after Julia's ravisher: but in vain were
all the inquiries that could be made; by no means I could devise was
the least trace of him to be discovered.  Deeply mortified at the
unsuccessful issue of my search, I bent my steps back to Seraphina,
whom I pictured to myself as overwhelmed with uneasiness.  Yet she
was in better spirits than might have been expected.  She informed me
that her success had been better than mine; for she had learned how
her sister was disposed of.  She had received a letter from Don
Ferdinand himself, importing that after being privately married to
Julia, he had placed her in a convent at Toledo.  I have sent his
letter to my father, pursued Seraphina; I hope the affair may be
adjusted amicably, and that a solemn marriage will soon extinguish
the feuds which have so long kept our respective families at variance.

When the lady had thus informed me of her sister's fate, she began
making an apology for the trouble she had given me, as well as the
danger into which she might imprudently have thrown me, by engaging
my services in pursuit of a ravisher, without recollecting what I had
told her, that an affair of honor had been the occasion of my flight.
Her excuses were couched in such flattering terms, as to convert her
very oversight into an obligation.  As rest was desirable for me
after my journey, she conducted me into the saloon, where we sat down
together.  She wore an undress gown of white taffety with black
stripes, and a little hat of the same materials with black feathers;
which gave me reason to suppose that she might be a widow.  But she
looked so young, that I scarcely knew what to think of it.

If I was all impatient to get at her history, she was not less so to
know who I was.  She besought me to acquaint her with my name, not
doubting, as she kindly expressed it, by my noble air, and still more
by the generous pity which had made me enter so warmly into her
interests, that I belonged to some considerable family.  The question
was not a little perplexing.  My color came and went, my agitation
was extreme: and I must own that, with less repugnance to the
meanness of a falsehood than to the acknowledgment of a disgraceful
truth, I answered that I was the son of Baron Steinbach, an officer
of the German guard.  Tell me, likewise, resumed the lady, why you
left Madrid.  Before you answer my question, I will insure you all my
father's credit, as well as that of my brother Don Gaspard.  It is
the least mark of gratitude I can bestow on a gentleman who, for my
service, has neglected the preservation even of his own life.
Without further hesitation, I acquainted her with all the
circumstances of my rencounter: she laid the whole blame on my
deceased antagonist, and engaged to interest all her family in my
favor.

When I had satisfied her curiosity, it seemed not unreasonable to
plead in favor of my own.  I inquired whether she was maid, wife, or
widow.  It is three years, answered she, since my father made me
marry Don Diego de Lara; and I have been a widow these fifteen
months.  Madam, said I, by what misfortune were your wedded joys so
soon interrupted?  I am going to inform you, sir, resumed the lady,
in return for the confidence you have reposed in me.

Don Diego de Lara was a very elegant and accomplished gentleman: but,
though his affection for me was extreme, and every day was witness to
some attempt at giving me pleasure, such as the most impassioned and
most tender lover puts in practice to win the smile of her he loves;
though he had a thousand estimable qualities, my heart was untouched
by all his merit.  Love is not always the offspring either of
assiduity or desert.  Alas! we are often captivated at first sight by
we know not whom, nor why, nor how.  To love, then, was not in my
power.  More disconcerted than gratified by his repeated offices of
tenderness, which I received with a forced courtesy, but without real
pleasure, if I accused myself in secret of ingratitude, I still
thought myself an object as much of pity as of censure.  To his
unhappiness and my own, his delicacy more than kept pace with his
affection.  Not an action or a speech of mine, but he unravelled all
its hidden motives, and fathomed all my thoughts, almost before they
arose.  The inmost recesses of my heart were laid open to his
penetration.  He complained without ceasing of my indifference; and
esteemed himself only so much the more unfortunate in not being able
to please me, as he was well assured that no rival stood in his way;
for I was scarcely sixteen years old; and, before he paid his
addresses to me, he had tampered with my woman, who had assured him
that no one had hitherto attracted my attention.  Yes, Seraphina, he
would often say, I could have been contented that you had preferred
some other to myself, and that there were no more fatal cause of your
insensibility.  My attentions and your own principles would get the
better of such a juvenile prepossession; but I despair of triumphing
over your coldness, since your heart is impenetrable to all the love
I have lavished on you.  Wearied with the repetition of the same
strain, I told him that instead of disturbing his repose and mine by
this excess of delicacy, he would do better in trusting to the
effects of time.  In fact, at my age, I could not be expected to
enter into the refinements of so sentimental a passion; and Don Diego
should have waited, as I warned him, for a riper period and more
staid reflection.  But, finding that a whole year had elapsed, and
that he was no forwarder in my favor than on the first day, he lost
all patience, or rather, his brain became distracted.  Affecting to
have important business at court, he took his leave, and went to
serve as a volunteer in the Low Countries; where he soon found in the
chances of war what he went to seek, the termination of his
sufferings and of his life.

After the lady had finished her recital, her husband's uncommon
character became the topic of our discourse.  We were interrupted by
the arrival of a courier, charged with a letter for Seraphina from
the Count de Polan.  She begged my permission to read it; and as she
went on, I observed her to grow pale, and to become dreadfully
agitated.  When she had finished, she raised her eyes upward, heaved
a long sigh, and her face was in a moment bathed with her tears.  Her
sorrow sat heavily on my feelings.  My spirits were greatly
disturbed; and, as if it were a forewarning of the blow impending
over my head, a death-like shudder crept through my frame, and my
faculties were all benumbed.  Madam, said I, in accents half choked
with apprehension, may I ask of what dire events that letter brings
the tidings?  Take it, sir, answered Seraphina most dolefully, while
she held out the letter to me.  Read for yourself what my father has
written.  Alas! you are but too deeply concerned in the contents.

At these words, which made my blood run cold, I took the letter with
a trembling hand, and found in it the following intelligence: "Your
brother, Don Gaspard, fought yesterday at the Prado.  He received a
small sword wound, of which he died this day; and declared before he
breathed his last that his antagonist was the son of Baron Steinbach,
an officer of the German guard.  As misfortunes never come alone, the
murderer has eluded my vengeance by flight; but wherever he may have
concealed himself, no pains shall be spared to hunt him out.  I am
going to write to the magistrates all round the country, who will not
fail to take him into custody, if he passes through any of the towns
in their jurisdiction, and by the notices I am going to circulate, I
hope to cut off his retreat in the country or at the seaports.--THE
COUNT DE POLAN."

Conceive into what a ferment this letter threw all my thoughts.  I
remained for some moments motionless and without the power of speech.
In the midst of my confusion, I too plainly saw the destructive
bearing of Don Gaspard's death on the passion I had imbibed.  My
despair was unbounded at the thought.  I threw myself at Seraphina's
feet, and offering her my naked sword, Madam, said I, spare the Count
de Polan the necessity of seeking farther for a man who might
possibly withdraw himself from his resentment.  Be yourself the
avenger of your brother: offer up his murderer as the victim of your
own hand: now, strike the blow.  Let this very weapon, which
terminated his life, cut short the sad remnant of his adversary's
days.  Sir, answered Seraphina, a little softened by my behavior, I
loved Don Gaspard, so that though you killed him in fair and manly
hostility, and though he brought his death upon himself, you may rest
assured that I take up my father's quarrel.  Yes, Don Alphonso, I am
your decided enemy, and will do against you all that the ties of
blood and friendship require at my hands.  But I will not take
advantage of your evil star: in vain has it delivered you into my
grasp: if honor arms me against you, the same sentiment forbids to
pursue a cowardly revenge.  The rights of hospitality must be
inviolable, and I will not repay such service as you have rendered me
with the treachery of an assassin.  Fly!  make your escape, if you
can, from our pursuit and from the rigor of the laws, and save your
forfeit life from the dangers that beset it.

What then, madam, returned I, when vengeance is in your own hands, do
you turn it over to the laws, which may, perhaps, be too slow for
your impatience?  Nay! rather stab a wretch who is not worthy of your
forbearance.  No, madam, maintain not so noble and so generous a
proceeding with one like me.  Do you know who I am?  All Madrid takes
me for Baron Steinbach's son; yet am I nothing better than a
foundling, whom he brought up from charity, I know not even who were
guilty of my existence.  No matter, interrupted Seraphina, with
precipitation, as if my last words had given her new uneasiness,
though you were the lowest of mankind I would do what honor bids.
Well, madam, said I, since a brother's death is insufficient to
excite your thirst after my blood, I will exasperate your hatred
still farther by a new offence, of which I trust you will never
pardon the boldness.  I dote on you: I could not behold your charms
without being dazzled by them: and, in spite of the cloud in which my
destiny was enveloped, I had cherished the hope of being united to
you.  I was so infatuated by my passion, or rather by my pride, as to
flatter myself that heaven, which perhaps conceals from me my birth
in mercy, might discover it one day, and enable me without a blush to
acquaint you with my real name.  After this injurious avowal, can you
hesitate a moment about punishing me?

This rash declaration, replied the lady, would doubtless prove
offensive at any other season; but I forgive it in consideration of
the trouble which bewilders you.  Besides, my own condition so
engrosses me, as to render me deaf to any strange ideas that may
escape you.  Once more, Don Alphonso, added she, shedding tears,
begone far from a house which you have cast into mourning; every
moment of your longer stay adds pungency to my distress.  I no longer
oppose your will, madam, returned I, preparing to take my leave:
absence from you must then be my portion: but do not suppose that,
anxious for the preservation of a life which is become hateful to
you, I go to seek an asylum where I may be sheltered from your
search.  No, no; I bare my breast to your resentment.  I shall wait
with impatience at Toledo for the fate which you design me; and by
surrendering at once to my pursuers, shall myself forward the
completion of my miseries.

At the conclusion of this speech I withdrew.  My horse was returned
to me, and I went to Toledo, where I abode eight days, and really
with so little care to conceal myself, that I know not how or why I
have escaped an arrest; for I cannot suppose that the Count de Polan,
whose whole soul is set on cutting off my retreat, should not have
been aware that I was likely to pass through Toledo.  Yesterday I
left that town, where it should seem as if I was tired of my liberty,
and without betaking myself to any fixed course of travelling, I came
to this hermitage, like a man who had no reason to be ashamed of
showing himself.  Such, father, was the cause of my absence and
distraction.  I beseech you to assist me with your counsels.




_CHAPTER XI._

_THE OLD HERMIT TURNS OUT AN EXTRAORDINARY GENIUS, AND GIL BLAS FINDS
HIMSELF AMONG HIS FORMER ACQUAINTANCE._

When Don Alphonso had concluded the melancholy recital of his
misfortunes, the old hermit said to him, My son, you have been,
excessively rash in tarrying so long at Toledo.  I consider in a very
different light from that you affect to place it in, what you have
told me of your story; and your love for Seraphina seems to me to be
sheer madness.  Take my word for it, you will do well to cancel that
young lady from your remembrance; she never can be of your communion.
Retreat like a skilful general, when you cannot act with effect on
the offensive; and pursue your fortune on another field, where
success may smile on your endeavors.  You will be terribly out of
luck to kill the brother of the next young lady who may chance to
succeed this only possible object of your affection.

He was going to add many other inducements to resignation, in such a
case as Don Alphonso's, when we saw another hermit enter our retreat,
with a well stuffed wallet slung across his shoulders.  He was on his
return, with the charitable contributions of all the good folks in
the town of Cuença; and the gathering did credit to the religion of
the age.  He looked younger than his companion, in spite of his
thick, foxy beard.  Welcome home, brother Antony, said the elder of
the two recluses; what news do you bring us from town?  Bad enough,
answered the carroty friar, putting into his hands a paper, folded in
the form of a letter; this little instrument will inform you.  The
hoary sage opened it, and after reading on with an increased
attention, as the contents seemed to grow more interesting,
exclaimed, Heaven's will be done!  Since the combustion is
anticipated; we have only to fall in with the humor of our fate; Let
us change our dialect, Signor Don Alphonso! pursued he, addressing
his discourse to my young companion: you behold in me a man, like
yourself, who has been a broad mark for the wantonness of fortune to
take aim at.  Word is sent me from Cuença, a town at the distance of
a league hence, that some back-biter has been blackening my fair fame
in the esteem of justice; who is coming with her hue and cry to
disturb the repose of these rural scenes, and to lay her paw upon my
person.  But an old fox is too cunning to be caught in a trap.  This
is not the first time that I have cut and run before the bloodhounds
of the law.  But, thanks to myself for having my wits about me, I
have always ended the chase in a whole skin, and held myself in
readiness for another.  It is now time to assume another form; for,
whether you like me best in my old skin or my new, I cast my hermit's
decrepit slough, to bask in the sunshine of youth and vigor.

To suit the action to the word, he threw off the encumbrance of his
ecclesiastical petticoat, and stood forth to view in a doublet of
black serge with slashed sleeves.  Then off went his cap, and snap
went a string, which supported the hoary honors of a beard, and our
anchorite was at once transformed to a brawny ruffian of
eight-and-twenty or thirty.  Brother Antony, following a good
example, discarded the outward show of religion, treated his fiery
beard as the snowy one had been handled just before, and pulled out
of an old worm-eaten trunk a sorry rag of a cassock, with which he
invested his person.  But what words can express my surprise, when
Signor Don Raphael presented himself to my view, like a phœnix
from the ashes of the old bead-counter!  To complete the trick of the
pantomime, brother Antony was turned into my faithful vassal and
trusty squire, Ambrose de Lamela.  Here are miracles! exclaimed I, in
a quandary; as far as I can perceive, we are all hail fellow well
met!  You never were more lucky in your life, Signor Gil Blas, said
Don Raphael, with a brazen-faced good humor: you have fallen among
old friends when you least expected it.  It must be owned you have a
crow to pluck with us; but let the past be buried in oblivion, and
thank heaven, here we are together again.  Ambrose and I will serve
under your banner; and let me tell you, you will have subalterns of
no contemptible prowess.  You may object to our morals; but they are
better in the main than many a hypocrite's pretensions.  We never
assassinate, and rarely maltreat; and that in pure self-defence.  The
only liberty we take with society is to live at free quarters: and
though robbery may be considered as containing some little spice of
injustice, the necessity we labor under of committing it restores its
equilibrium to the scale.  Even join your fortune with ours: you will
lead a life of hazard, but of variety.  Our predatory peregrinations
have every pastoral beauty except innocence, and the want of that is
more than counterpoised by subtlety and stratagem.  Not but, with all
our forecast, a certain mechanical concatenation of second causes
sometimes frustrates our best concerted projects, and drags our
philosophy through the mire.  But a ducking now and then only makes
us swim the better.  The seasons must all be taken in their turns:
the blanks as well as the prizes must be drawn in the cheating
lottery of life.

Courteous stranger, pursued the pretended hermit, speaking to Don
Alphonso, we extend the proposal of partnership to you, and it may be
a question whether you will better yourself by rejecting it, in the
lamentable condition of your affairs; for, to say nothing of the
chance medley for which you are at hide and seek, your fortune is
probably a little out at elbows.  Most lamentably so, said Don
Alphonso; and hence, since the truth must out, are my forebodings
more dark than even my present evils.  That is the very thing!
replied Don Raphael.  You were sent by our better genius to join the
party.  You will find no such good birth in the honest part of the
world.  Your wants will all be supplied, and you may laugh at the
vigilance of your pursuers.  There is not a corner in all Spain which
we have not ferreted out; those who are always on the scamper see a
great deal of the country.  We are perfect connoisseurs in landscape,
and affect Salvator Rosa's rugged scenery.  There we graze in peace
and freedom, secure from the brutality of justice.  Don Alphonso
expressed himself very much obliged to them for their kind
invitation; and finding neither money in his purse, nor contrivance
to procure it in his pericranium, made up his mind at once not to
stand upon punctilio with morality.  I too was led into a looser
course than agreed with my rigid principles, by a growing friendship
for this young man, whom I could not find in my heart to abandon in
so perilous an enterprise.

We all four agreed to set off in a body, and never to part company.
The question was put whether we should sound a retreat on the
instant, or first give a peremptory summons to a flagon of excellent
wine, which brother Antony had invested by regular approaches at
Cuença the day before; but Raphael, a more experienced general than
any of us, represented that the first thing to be done was to render
our own camp impregnable, for which purpose he proposed that we
should march all night, to gain a very thick wood between Villardesa
and Almodabar, where we should halt, as in a friendly country, and
recruit after the fatigues of the campaign.  These general orders
were approved of in council.  Our lay hermits then went about packing
up their baggage and provisions, which were swung in two bundles
across the back of Don Alphonso's horse.  We were not long in our
preparations, after which we sheered off from the hermitage, leaving
a rich booty to legal rapine in the saintly paraphernalia of the two
hermits; including a white beard and a red one, two rickety
bedsteads, a table without a leg, a chest without a bottom, two
chairs without any seats, and an unmutilated image of St. Pacomo.

Our march was continued the whole night, and we began to chafe and
feel other inconveniences, when at daybreak we hailed the wood where
our toils were to end.  Sailors after a long voyage work the ship
with double alacrity at the sight of their native land.  So it was
with us; we pushed forward, and got to our journey's end by sunrise.
Dashing into the thickest of the wood, we pitched upon a retired and
pleasant spot, where the turf was circled in by tall and branching
oaks, whose gigantic limbs, interwoven over our heads, formed a
natural vault, not to be penetrated even by noon-day heat.  We took
the bridle off the horse to let him feed after he was unloaded.  Then
down we sat, pulling out of brother Antony's wallet some large pieces
of bread and good substantial slices of roast meat, at which we began
pegging with all possible pertinacity.  Nevertheless, let our
appetites be as obstinate as they might, we every now and then
suspended the fray to spar a little with the flagon, which returned
our blows till it made us reel again.

About the end of the conflict, Don Raphael said to Don Alphonso, My
brave comrade, after the confidence you have reposed in me, it is but
fair that in my turn I should recount the history of my life to you
with the same sincerity.  You will do me a great favor, answered the
young man.  And an equal one to me, chimed in I.  My curiosity is all
alive, to know your adventures, for doubtless they must afford much
matter of useful speculation.  You may rest assured of that, replied
Don Raphael; and I mean to leave behind me a history of my own times.
The composition shall be the amusement of my old age, for I am as yet
in the prime of life, and mean to furnish in propriâ personâ, many
new hints for my commonplace-book.  But we are all weary; let us
recruit with some hours of sleep.  While we three lie down, Ambrose
shall keep watch for fear of a surprise, and shall then take a nap in
his turn.  For though, to all appearance, we are here in perfect
safety, it is always good to keep a sentry at the outposts.  After
this precaution he stretched himself along upon the grass.  Don
Alphonso did the same.  I followed their example, and Lamela
performed the office of a scout.

Don Alphonso, so far from getting any rest, was incessantly brooding
over his misfortunes, and I could not get a wink of sleep.  As for
Don Raphael, he snored most sonorously.  But he awoke in little more
than an hour, when, finding us in a listening mood, he said to
Lamela, My friend Ambrose, you may now yield to the gentle influence
of Morpheus.  No, no, answered Lamela, my sleepy fit is over; and
though I know all the passages of your life by rote, they are so
instructive to the practitioners of our art and mystery, that I do
not care how often I hear the tale over again.  Without further
preface, Don Raphael began the narrative of his adventures in these
terms.




BOOK THE FIFTH.



_CHAPTER I._

_HISTORY OF DON RAPHAEL._

I made my entrance on the stage of life at Madrid, where my mother
was an actress, famous for her dramatic, and infamous for her
intriguing talents.  Her name was Lucinda.  As for my father, every
man must have one; but my arithmetic is too scanty to determine the
number of mine.  It might indeed be a matter of history, that such or
such a man of fashion was dangling after my mother at the epoch of my
arrival in this system; but then, that mere fact would by no means
warrant a deduction that any individual gallant of the mother must
therefore be the father of the child.  A lady, so eminent as she was
in so notorious and wholesale a profession, must have many strings to
her bow; where her blandishments are most publicly lavished, her
favors are most sparingly bestowed: there is a show article or two
for public exhibition, but her every-day wares are cheap, and
hackneyed to the meanest purchaser.

There is nothing like taking scandal by the beard, and treating the
opinion of the world with heroic indifference.  Lucinda, instead of
cooping me up in a garret at home, made no scruple about owning her
little bastard, but took me in her hand to the theatre with a modest
assurance, regardless how the tongue of rumor might babble at her
expense, or how the laugh of malice might peal at my unlucky
appearance.  In short, I was her pet, and came in for the caresses of
all the men who frequented the house.  One would have sworn that
nature pleaded in my favor, and inspired each of them with a father's
pride in the brat they had clubbed for.  The twelve first years of my
life were suffered to waste away in all kinds of frivolous
amusements.  Scarcely did they teach me to read and write.  Still
less was it thought of any consequence to initiate me in the
principles of my religion.  To dance, to sing, to play on the guitar,
was the sum total of my early attainments.  With these gifts and
graces for my only acquisitions, the Marquis of Leganez asked for me
to be about his only son, who was nearly of my own age.  Lucinda gave
her consent without reluctance, and it was then that I began to mind
a little what I was about.  Young Leganez could not reproach me with
my ignorance; his little lordship was not cast in a scientific mould,
for he scarcely knew a letter of his alphabet, though he had been
under private tuition for fifteen months.  None of his masters could
make anything of him; patience was never formed to engage in so
unequal a match.  To be sure, they were expressly forbid to exercise
any severity on his noble carcass; their orders were to teach, not to
torture him; and this tender precaution, acting on a subject of
insufferably untoward dispositions, was the means of throwing to the
dogs all the mental physic they poured in; he would none of it.

But the verb-grinder engendered in his noddle a most ingenious
device, by which to keep this troublesome young lordling in awe,
without trenching on his foolish father's injunctions.  The scheme
was no other than to flog me whenever that scapegrace Leganez had
incurred the penalty of the rod, and this vicarious execution was
inflicted with the utmost rigor.  My consent to the transfer had
never been asked, and there was nothing in the act itself to
recommend it; so that my only chance was to run away, and appeal to
my mother against so arbitrary a discipline.  However her maternal
feelings might inwardly revolt, no trace of woman's weakness could be
detected in her manner of receiving my complaint.  The Leganez
connection was too important to be lost for a few whippings; and away
went she, dragging her culprit into the presence of his tormentor,
who, by this act of hers, became master of broom field.  Experience
had convinced him that the success of his invention corresponded with
its felicity.  He therefore went on improving the mind and manners of
the little grandee at the expense of my skin.  Remorse for his
delinquencies was to be excited only by sympathy; so that whenever it
became necessary to make a bloody example, my seat of vengeance was
firked most unmercifully.  The running account between young Leganez
and me was all on one side, and scarcely a day passed but he sinned
on tick and suffered by attorney.  By the nearest calculation of
whole numbers, there went somewhere about a hundred cuts to teach him
each single letter of the alphabet; so that if you multiply 100 by 24
for stupidity, and add a 0 to the amount for moral offences, you will
have the sum total of the belaboring that his education cost me.

This thick and threefold companionship with birch was not the only
rub; my path through this family was more beset with thorns than
sweetened by flowers.  As my birth and connections were no secret,
the whole of the establishment, to the very refuse of the household,
the stable boys and scullions, twitted me with my shameful origin.
This stuck so terribly in my throat that I made my escape once more,
but not without borrowing my tutor's ready money, amounting to
upwards of a hundred and fifty ducats, for an indefinite period, and
without interest.  Thus was the account settled between us; since he
had made a property of my hide for a scarecrow, it was but fair that
I should have a finger in the earnings of his arm.  For a first
attempt at thieving both the plan and execution were hopeful.  A hue
and cry was raised for two days; it was hot while it lasted, but I
lay snug, and they missed me.  Madrid was no longer a fit
hiding-place; so I took to cover in Toledo, and the hounds were
thrown out.

I was just then entering into my fifteenth year.  What a happy
fellow, at such an early age, to shape my own conduct and be in a
condition of forming a set of morals for myself!  I soon scraped
acquaintance with some pleasant youths, who rescued me from the
dominion of prejudice, and shared liberally with me in the sin of
spending what was not my own.  By degrees I rose in society, and
leagued myself with a set of professional sharpers, who found me so
fine a subject to work upon, that a short time, with plenty of
practice, put me in possession of all the most desperate jobs.  At
the expiration of five years, an itch for travelling laid hold of me.
I therefore took leave of my comrades, and got as far as Alcantara,
wishing to commence my peregrinations with the province of
Estremadura.  In this my first excursion, an opportunity of keeping
in my hand occurred; and I was too diligent a practitioner to let it
escape.  As I was on foot, and loaded moreover with a pretty heavy
knapsack, I halted from time to time to avail myself of the shade,
and recruit a little under the trees which lined the highway.  At one
of these baits I picked up two young gentlemen, who were chatting at
their ease upon the grass, and inhaling the freshness of the breeze.
My mode of accosting them was suited to the occasion; nor did its
familiarity seem to be taken in ill part.  The eldest could not be
more than fifteen--a couple of as practicable greenhorns as ever fell
into the hands of a man of genius.  Courteous stranger, said the
youngest, we are the sons of two rich citizens at Placentia.  Longing
extremely to see the kingdom of Portugal, we have each of us begged a
hundred pistoles from our friends, and are setting out to satisfy our
curiosity.  Travelling on foot as we do, we shall be able to get a
good way with that supply, shall we not?  What do you think of it?
If I had as much, answered I, they might take me who could catch me.
I would scour over the four known quarters of the globe, and then set
out on new discoveries.  Fire and fury!  Two hundred pistoles!  Why,
it is an entail for a dukedom!  You ought to lay by out of the
interest.  If it is agreeable to you, gentlemen, I will club with you
as far as Almeria, whither I am going to take possession of an estate
left me by an uncle who was settled there for twenty years or upwards.

My young cockneys testified at once the pleasure they should derive
from my company.  Whereupon, when we were all three a little
refreshed, we trudged on towards Alcantara, where we arrived early in
the afternoon.  No inn but the best was fit to hold such guests.  We
asked for a room, and were shown into one where there was a press
with a good strong lock upon it.  Supper was ordered without delay;
but as some time was required to get it ready, I proposed to my
travelling companions a gentle saunter about the town.  The party
seemed perfectly agreeable.  We locked up our knapsacks in the press,
the key of which one of the citizens put in his pocket, and out
sallied we from the inn.  The churches were the best lions we met
with in our way; and while we were gaping about the principal, I
pretended to have recollected on a sudden some very urgent business.
Gentlemen, said I to my companions, it has just come across me that a
good man of Toledo gave me a commission to say two words on his
behalf to a merchant who lives hard by this church.  Have the
goodness to wait for me here; I will be back in a moment.  With this
excuse, I went off like a shot, in the direction of our inn.  The
press was my point of attack--I forced the lock, ransacked the
baggage of my young citizens, and laid a sacrilegious hand on their
pistoles.  Poor youths!  How they were to pay their reckoning, it was
not for me to presume even to guess, for most assuredly I stripped
them of all the natural means.  After this feat, I decamped as
expeditiously as my legs could carry me from the town, and took the
direction of Merida, without caring a curse what became of the young
brood I had plucked.

Such a windfall as this placed me in a condition of travelling
merrily.  Though in the very blush of youth, a certain forecast was
not wanting to carry me discreetly through the world, and keep my
head above water.  It must be admitted without question, that I was a
youth of forward parts for my age, and unfettered by the prejudices
of innocence.  I determined to buy a mule, and cheapened one at the
first market town.  My knapsack was metamorphosed into a portmanteau,
and by degrees I began to put on the man of consequence.  On the
third day a man came across me singing vespers with lungs like a pair
of bellows on the highway.  By his air, he seemed to be a musician of
the church establishment, and I accosted him accordingly.  Well done,
my holy howler of the hallelujahs!  You sing your penitential ditties
at a good jovial pitch.  To all appearance you sol-fa with your whole
heart and soul.  Good sir, replied he, I belong, with your good
leave, to the musical department of the catholic church; and it is my
common practice to keep my devotion and my wind in play by the
rehearsal of an anthem or two as I travel along the road.

With this disposition to be sociable, we soon got into conversation.
It was clear to me that I had fallen in with a character not to be
despised in point of shrewdness, nor indisposed to society and
merriment.  He was four or five-and-twenty.  My companion being on
foot, I slackened my pace, for the pleasure of chatting with him.
Among other things, we talked about Toledo.  I am perfectly well
acquainted with that city, said the brazen-lunged torturer of
anthems.  It was my residence for a considerable time, and my
connections there are not altogether contemptible.  And in what part
of the town, interrupted I, did you reside?  In the New Street, was
his answer.  I was hand in glove with Don Vincent de Buena Garra, Don
Matthias de Cordello, and two or three other gentlemen of very
considerable fashion.  We lived together, took our meals at the same
mess, and, in short, were scarcely ever asunder.  It was a charming
society!  This avowal was no small surprise to me, for it is to be
understood, that the gentlemen whose names he cited with so pompous
an air were the very sharpers with whom I had been affiliated at
Toledo.  Why, thou degenerate vicar choral! exclaimed I, these fine
blades of whom thou hast been boasting are among the number of my
acquaintance also, for I too have lived with them in the New Street;
we were hand in glove, took our meals at the same mess, and, in
short, were scarcely ever asunder.  You are a wag! replied he, with a
knowing wink; that is to say, you got into the gang three years ago,
when I left it.  My motive for quitting such a worshipful fraternity,
resumed I, was an itch for travelling.  I mean to make the tour of
Spain.  A little more knowledge of the world will make me quite
another thing.  Doubtless, said he, there is no possible way but
travelling to rub off the rust, or to bring wit, talent, and address
to perfection.  It is for the self-same reason that I too turned my
back upon Toledo, though the time glided away there very agreeably.
But thanks to a kind providence, which has yoked me with a laborer in
my own vineyard, when I least expected it.  Let us join our forces,
let us travel the same road, let us make a joint-stock of our
neighbors' purses, let us rob, let us cheat, let us avail ourselves
of every opportunity that may offer of exemplifying our theory, and
improving our practice, in the noble art on which our skill is
employed.  The proposal was made in so candid a spirit, so like a
citizen of the world, untainted with the selfishness of your honest
men, that I closed in with it at once.  My confidence was surrendered
at the first summons to the frankness with which he volunteered his
own.  We spoke our free hearts each to the other.  I dilated all my
pilgrimage, and he spake of most disastrous chances, of moving
accidents through which he had passed even from his boyish days to
this very moment of his ripe and rampant roguery.  It appeared that
he was on his way from Portalegre, whence he had been obliged to
decamp with the utmost expedition on account of a little swindling
transaction in which his luck happened not to keep pace with his
ingenuity.  The habit he wore was sacrilegiously adopted as a cloak
to his person and real character, since he thought it safest to be
near the church, however far from God.  Thus did we two share all our
counsel, and pledge our brother's vows, till we grew together like a
double cherry, and determined, with two seeming bodies but one heart,
to incorporate our voices and minds in some master-stroke at Merida.
If it took, well and good; if not, we had only to cut and run.  From
this moment, community of goods, that pure and simple feature of
patriarchal life, was enacted as a law between us.  Moralez, it is
true, for that was my fellow-traveller's name, did not find himself
in the most splendid condition possible.  His funds were limited to
five or six ducats, with a few little articles in a bag.  I therefore
was the moneyed man of the firm; but then there was brass in his
forehead for an inexhaustible coinage, and the seeming of a saint
when he played the devil most.  So on we journeyed on the ride and
tie principle, and arrived in humble cavalcade at Merida.

We put up at an inn near the skirts of the town, where my comrade
changed his dress.  When he had rigged himself in layman's attire, we
took a turn up and down to reconnoitre the ground, and see if we
could pick out some opportunity of laboring in our vocation.  Had it
been our good fortune to have lived before Homer, that old apologist
for sharping by wholesale would have dignified our excursion with a
simile.

  Not half so keen, fierce vultures of the chase
  Stoop from the mountains on the feathered race, &c.

To descend into plain prose, we were ruminating on the chapter of
accidents, and hammering out some theme for the employment of our
industry, when we espied a gray-headed old gentleman in the street,
sword in hand, defending himself against three men who were thrusting
at him with all their might and main.  The unfairness of the match
was what stuck in my throat; so that flying, with the spirit of a
prize-fighter, to see fair play, I made common cause with the old
man.  Moralez followed up my blows.  We proved ourselves a match for
the three assailants, and put them completely to the rout.

Our rescued friend was profuse in his acknowledgments.  We are in
rapture, said I, at our good luck in being here so seasonably for
your assistance; but let us at least know to whom we have been so
fortunate as to be serviceable; and what inducement those three men
could possibly have for their murderous attempt.  Gentlemen, replied
he, my obligations are too great to hesitate about satisfying your
curiosity; my name is Jerome de Moyadas, a gentleman of this town,
living on my means.  One of these cut-throat rascals, from whom you
have rescued me, professes to be in love with my daughter.  He asked
her of me in marriage within these few days; and for want of gaining
my consent in a quiet way, has just attempted to force himself into
my daughter's good graces by sending me into the other world.  And
may we take the liberty, rejoined I, of inquiring further, why you
were so obdurate to the proposals of this enamoured swain?  I will
explain the whole to you at once, said he.  I had a brother, a
merchant in this town; his name was Austin.  Two months ago he
happened to be at Calatrava, and took up his abode with his
correspondent, Juan Velez de la Membrilla.  They got to be as loving
as turtles; and my brother, to clinch the connection, engaged my
daughter Florence to his good friend's son, not doubting but he had
influence enough with me to redeem his pledge when he returned to
Merida.  Accordingly, he no sooner opened himself on the subject than
I consented out of pure fraternal affection.  He sent Florence's
picture to Calatrava; but, alas! he did not live to put the finishing
hand to his own work.  We laid him with his forefathers three weeks
ago!  On his death-bed, he besought me not to dispose of my girl but
in favor of his correspondent's son.  I satisfied his mind on that
point; and this is the reason why I have refused Florence to the
suitor by whom I was assaulted, though the match would have been a
very desirable one.  But my word is my idol; and we are in daily
expectation of Juan Velez de la Membrilla's heir, who is to be my
son-in-law, though I know no more of him, nor of his father neither,
than if they were just imported from an undiscovered island.  But I
beg pardon; this is an old man's garrulity.  Yet you yourselves led
me into the scrape.

This tale did I swallow with a greedy ear; and pouncing at once upon
a part to play, which my fruitful imagination suggested, I put on an
air of inordinate surprise, and ventured at all hazards to lift my
eyes upward to a purer region.  Then turning to my father-in-law,
with an expression of feeling which nothing but hypocrisy could
personate, Ah!  Signor de Moyadas, is it possible that, on my arrival
at Merita, I should enjoy the heartfelt triumph of rescuing from foul
assassination the honored parent of my peerless love?  This
exclamation produced all the astonishment it was levelled to excite
in the old citizen.  Even Moralez himself stared like an honest man,
and showed by his face that there was a degree of impudence to which
his conceptions had not hitherto risen.  What! do not my ears deceive
me? exclaimed the old gentleman.  And are you really the son of my
brother's correspondent?  Really and truly, Signor Jerome de Moyadas,
rejoined I, with impregnable effrontery, and a hug round his neck
that had nearly sent him after his brother.  Behold the selected
mortal of his species, to whose arms the adorable Florence is
devoted!  But these nuptial anticipations, transporting as they are,
must yield to the anguish of my soul for the demise of their founder.
Poor Austin!  He is gone, and we must all follow!  I should be
ingratitude personified, if my heart was not lacerated and rent by
the death of a man to whom I owe all my hopes of bliss.  At the term
of this period, I squeezed good Jerome's weasand once more, and drew
the back of my hand across my eyes, to wipe away the tears it had not
been convenient to shed.  Moralez, who by this time had conned over
the pretty pickings to be made out of this juggle, was not wanting to
play his underpart.  He passed himself off for my servant, and
improved upon his master in lamentation for the untimely death of
Signor Austin.  My honored master Jerome! exclaimed he, what a loss
have you sustained, since your brother is no more!  He was such an
honest man!  Honest men are not to be met with every day.  A
superfine sample of commerce!  A dealer in friendship without a
percentage!  A dealer in merchandise without an underhand advantage!
A dealer who dealt as dealers very seldom do deal.

We had our hands to play against a man who was a novice at the game.
Simple and gullible, so far from smelling out the rat, he took his
stink for a nosegay.  And why, said he, did you not come straight to
my house?  It was not friendly to put up at an inn.  On the footing
we are likely to be upon, there should be none of those punctilios.
Sir, said Moralez, helping me out of the scrape, my master is a
little too much given to stand upon ceremony.  Though to be sure, in
the present instance, he is in some degree excusable for declining to
appear before you in this uncouth trim.  We have been robbed upon the
road, and have lost all our travelling equipage.  My lad, interrupted
I, has let the cat out of the bag, Signor de Moyadas.  This unlucky
accident has prevented me from paying my respects sooner.  True love
is diffident; nor could I venture in this garb into the presence of a
mistress who was unacquainted with my person.  I was therefore
waiting the return of a servant whom I have sent to Calatrava.  Such
a trifle, rejoined the old man, must not deprive us of your company;
and I insist upon it, that you make my house your home from this very
moment.

With such sort of importunity, he forced me into his family: but as
we were on our way, the pretended robbery was a natural topic of
conversation; and I should have made light of my baggage, though the
loss was very considerable, had not Florence's picture unluckily
formed a part of the booty!  The old codger chuckled at that, and
observed, that such a loss was easily repaired: the original was
worth five hundred per cent. more than the copy.  To make me amends,
as soon as we got home, he called his daughter, a girl of not more
than sixteen, with a person to have reclaimed a libertine, if beauty
ever possessed that power except in romance.  You behold, said he,
the bale of goods my late brother has consigned to you.  O, my good
sir! exclaimed I, in an impassioned tone, words are not wanting to
assure me that this must be the lovely Florence: those bewitching
features are engraven on my memory, their impression is indelible on
my heart.  If the portrait I have lost, the mere outline of these
embodied charms, could kindle passion by its cold and lifeless
likeness, judge what must be my agitation, my transport at this
moment.  Such language is too flattering to be sincere, said
Florence; nor am I so weak and vain as to be persuaded that my merits
warrant it.  That is right; interchange your fine speeches, my
children!  This was a good-natured encouragement from the father, who
at once left me alone with his daughter, and taking Moralez aside,
said to him, My friend, those who made so free with your baggage,
doubtless did not stand upon any ceremony with your money.  Very
true, sir, answered my colleague; an overpowering band of robbers
poured down upon us near Castil-Blazo, and left us not a rag but what
we carry on our backs; but we are in momentary expectation of
receiving bills of exchange, and then we shall appear once more like
ourselves.

While you are waiting for your bills of exchange, replied the old
man, taking a purse out of his pocket, here are a hundred pistoles
with which you may do as you please.  O, sir! rejoined Moralez, as if
he were shocked, my master will never take them.  You do not know
him.  Heaven and earth! he is a man of the nicest scruples in money
matters.  Not one of your shabby fellows, always sponging upon his
friends, and ready to take up money wherever he can get it!  Running
in debt is ratsbane to him.  If he is to beg his bread or go into a
hospital, why, there is an end of it! but as for borrowing, he will
never be reduced to that.  So much the better, said the good burgess:
I value him the more for his independence.  Running in debt is a mean
thing; it ought to be ratsbane to him and everybody else.  Your
people of quality, to be sure, may plead prescription in their favor;
there is a sort of privileged swindling, not incompatible with high
honor, in high life.  If tradesmen were to be paid, they would be too
nearly on a level with their employers.  But as your master has such
upright principles, heaven forbid they should be violated in this
house!  Since any offer of pecuniary assistance would hurt his
feelings, we must say no more about it.  As the point seemed to be
settled, the purse was for steering its course back again into the
pocket; but my provident partner laid hold of Signor de Moyadas by
the arm, and delayed the convoy.  Stay, sir, said he: whatever
aversion my master may have to borrowing on a general principle, and
considered as borrowing, yet there is a light in which, with good
management, he may be brought to look kindly on your hundred
pistoles.  In fact, it is only in a mercantile point of view, as an
affair of debtor and creditor between strangers, that he holds this
formal doctrine; but he is free and easy enough where he is on a
family footing.  Why, there is his own father!  It is only ask and
have; and he does ask and have accordingly.  Now you are going to be
a second father to him, and are fairly entitled to be put on the same
confidential footing.  He is a young man of nice discrimination, and
will doubtless think you entitled to the compliment.

By thus shifting his ground, Moralez got possession of the old
gentleman's purse.  As for the girl and myself, we were engaged in a
little agreeable flirting; but were soon joined by our honored
parent, who interrupted our tête-à-tête.  He told Florence how much
he was obliged to me, and expressed his gratitude to myself, in terms
which left no doubt of our being a very happy family.  I made the
most of so favorable a disposition, by telling the good man, that if
he would bestow on me an acknowledgment the nearest to my heart, he
must hasten my marriage with his daughter.  My eagerness was not
taken amiss.  He assured me, that in three days at latest I should be
a happy bridegroom, and that instead of six thousand ducats, the
fortune he had promised to give my wife, he would make it up ten, as
a substantial proof how deeply he felt himself indebted to me for the
service I had rendered him.

Here we were, therefore, quite at home with our good friend Jerome de
Moyadas, sumptuously entertained, and catching every now and then a
vista vision of ten thousand ducats, with which we proposed to march
off abruptly from Merida.  Our transports, however, were not without
their alloy.  It was by no means improbable that within three days
the _bonâ fide_ son of Juan Velez de la Membrilla might come and
interrupt our sport.  This fear had for its foundation more than the
weakness of our nerves.  On the very next morning, a sort of
clodpole, with a portmanteau across his shoulders, knocked at the
door of Florence's father.  I was not at home at the time, but my
colleague had to bear the brunt of it.  Sir, said the rustic to our
sagacious friend, I belong to the young gentleman at Calatrava who is
to be your son-in-law--to Signor de la Membrilla.  We have both just
come off our journey: he will be here in an instant, and sent me
forward to prepare you for his arrival.  Hardly had these
unaccountable tidings been announced, when the master appeared in
person; which stretched the old fellow's blinkers into a stare, and
put Moralez a little to the blush.

Young Pedro was what we call a tall fellow of his inches.  He began
at once paying his compliments to the master of the house; but the
good man did not give him time to finish his speech, and turning
towards my partner in iniquity, asked what was the meaning of all
this.  Hereupon Moralez, whose power of face was not to be exceeded
by any human impudence, boldly asserted our identity, and said to the
old gentleman, Sir, these two men here before you belong to the gang
which pillaged us on the highway.  I have a perfect recollection of
their features; and in particular could swear to him who has the
effrontery to call himself the son of Signor Juan Velez de la
Membrilla.  The old citizen gulped down the lies of Moralez like
nectar, and told the intruders, on the supposition of their being the
impostors, Gentlemen, you are come the day after the fair: the trick
was a very good one, but it will not pass; the enemy has taken the
ground before you.  Pedro de la Membrilla has been under this roof
since yesterday.  Have all your wits about you, answered the young
man from Calatrava; you are nursing a viper in your bosom.  Be
assured that Juan Velez de la Membrilla has neither chick nor child
but myself.  And what relation is the hangman to you? replied the old
dupe: you are better known than liked in this house.  Can you look
this young man in the face? or can you deny that you robbed his
master?  If I were anywhere but under your roof, rejoined Pedro, in a
rage, I would punish the insolence of this scoundrel who fancies to
pass me off for a highwayman.  He is indebted for his safety to your
presence, which puts a curb upon my choler.  Good sir, pursued he,
you are grossly imposed on.  I am the favored youth to whom your
brother Austin has promised your daughter.  Is it your pleasure for
me to produce the whole correspondence with my father on the subject
of the impending match?  Will you be satisfied with Florence's
picture sent me by him as a present a little while before his death?

No, put in the old burgess crustily; the picture will work just as
strongly on my conviction as the letters.  I am perfectly aware by
what chance they all fell into your hands; and if you will take a
stupid fellow's advice, Merida will soon be rid of such rubbish.  A
quick march may save you a trouncing.  This is beyond all bearing,
screamed out the young roister with an overwhelming vehemence.  My
name shall never be stolen from me, and assumed by a common cheat
with impunity; neither shall my person be confounded with that of a
freebooter.  There are those in this town who can identify me; they
are forthcoming, and shall expose the fallacy by which you are
prejudiced against me.  With this assurance he withdrew, attended by
his servant, and Moralez kept possession of the field.  The adventure
had even the effect of determining Jerome de Moyadas to fix the
wedding for the very time being.  Accordingly he went his way, for
the purpose of giving the necessary orders for the celebration.

Though my colleague in knavery was well enough pleased to see
Florence's father in a humor so pat for our purposes, he was not
without certain scruples of conscience about our safety.  It was to
be feared lest the probable proceedings of Pedro might be followed up
by awkward consequences; so that he waited impatiently for my
arrival, to make me acquainted with what had occurred.  I found him
over head and ears in a brown study.  What is the matter, my friend?
said I; seemingly there is something upon your mind.  Indeed there
is, and something that will be minded, answered he.  At the same time
he let me into the affair.  Now you may judge, added he after a
pause, whether we have not some food for reflection.  It is your ill
star, rash contriver, which has thrown us into this perplexity.  The
idea, it must be confessed, was full of fire and ingenuity; had it
answered in the application, your renown would have been emblazoned
in the chronicles of our fraternity; but according to present
appearances, the run of luck is against us, and my counsels incline
to a prudent avoidance of all explanations, by quietly sneaking off
with the market-penny we have made of the silly old fellow's
credulity.

Master Moralez, replied I to this desponding speech, you give way to
difficulties with more haste than good speed.  Such pusillanimity
does but little honor to Don Matthias de Cordel, and the other
gallant blades with whom you were affiliated at Toledo.  After
serving a campaign under such experienced generals, it is not
soldierly to shrink from the perils of the field.  For my part, I am
resolved to fight the battles of these heroes over again, or, in more
vulgar phrase, to prove myself a chip from the old blocks.  The
precipice which makes your head turn giddy only stiffens my sinews to
surmount the toils of the way, and push forward to the end of our
career.  If you arrive at your journey's end in a whole skin, said my
companion, I will myself be your biographer, and set your fame far
above all the parallels of Plutarch.

Just as Moralez was finishing this learned allusion, Jerome de
Moyadas came in.  You shall be my son-in-law this very evening, said
he.  Your servant must have given you an account of what has just
passed.  What say you to the impudence of the scoundrel who wanted to
make me believe that he was the son of my brother's correspondent?
Honored sir, answered I, with a melancholy air, and in a tone of
voice the most insinuating that ever cajoled the easy faith of a
dotard, I feel within me that it is not in my nature to carry on an
imposition without betraying it in my countenance.  It now becomes
necessary to make you a sincere confession.  I am not the son of Juan
Velez de la Membrilla.  What is it you tell me? interrupted the old
man, out of breath with surprise, and out of his wits with
apprehension.  So, then, you are not the young man to whom my brother
... For pity's sake, sir, interrupted I in my turn, condescend to
give me a hearing patiently to the end of my story.  For these eight
days have I doted to distraction on your daughter; and this dotage,
this distraction, has riveted me to Merida.  Yesterday, after having
rescued you from your danger, I was making up my mind to ask her of
you in marriage; but you gave a check to my passion, and put a tie
upon my tongue, by the intelligence that she was destined for
another.  You told me that your brother, on his death-bed, enjoined
you to give her to Pedro de la Membrilla; that your word was pledged,
and that you were the sworn vassal and bondman of your veracity.
These circumstances, it must be owned, were overwhelming in the
extreme; and my romantic passion, at the last gasp of its despair,
gained breath by the stratagem with which the god of love inspired
me.  I must at the same time declare, that a trick is at the best but
a mean thing, and, however sanctified by the motive, my conscience
recoiled at the delusion.  Yet I could not but think that my pardon
would be granted on the discovery, when it should come out that I was
an Italian prince, travelling through this country as a private
gentleman.  My father reigns supreme over a nest of inaccessible
valleys, lying between Switzerland, the Milanese, and Savoy.  It
could not but occur to me that you would be agreeably surprised when
I should unfold to you my birth, and having married Florence under my
fictitious character, should announce to her the rank she had
attained) with all the rapture of an enamoured husband, and all the
stage effect of a hero in tragedy or romance.  But heaven, pursued I,
with a hypocritical softening down of my accents, has visited my sins
by cutting me off from such a perennial stream of joy.  Pedro de la
Membrilla was introduced upon the scene; he must have his name back
again, whatever the restitution may cost me.  Your promise binds you
hand and foot to fix upon him for your son-in-law; it is your duty to
give him the preference, without taking my rank and station into the
account; without mercy on the forlorn condition to which you are
going to reduce me.  To be sure, it might be said--but then I should
say it, who ought not to say it--that your brother had only the
authority of an uncle over your daughter, that you are her father,
and that there is more right and reason in discharging an actual debt
of gratitude towards your preserver, than in being mealy-mouthed
about a verbal promise, which would press but lightly on the
conscience of the most scrupulous casuist.

Yes, without doubt, that argument is indisputable, exclaimed Jerome
de Moyadas; and on that ground there can no longer be any question
between you and Pedro de la Membrilla.  If my brother Austin were
still living, he would not think it bad morality to give the
preference to a man who has saved my life, nor a bad speculation to
close the bargain with a prince who has not disdained to court our
alliance.  It were an absolute suicide on the part of all my opening
prospects, the frantic desperation of an acknowledged incurable, not
to dispose of my daughter so illustriously, not to solicit your
highness's acceptance of her hand.  And yet, sir, resumed I, these
things are not to be determined without due deliberation; look at
your own interests and safety with a microscopic eye; for though the
illustrious channel through which my blood has flowed for ages ...
You are scarcely serious, interrupted he, in supposing that I can
hesitate for a moment.  No, may it please your highness; it is my
most humble and earnest request that you will deign, on this very
evening, to honor the happy Florence with your hand.  Well, then,
said I, be it so; go yourself and be the bearer of the unlooked-for
tidings; announce to her the brilliant career of her exalted destiny.

While the good citizen was putting his best foot foremost, to instil
into his daughter that she had made the conquest of a prince,
Moralez, who had taken in the whole conversation with greedy ear,
threw himself upon his knees before me, and did homage in these
bantering terms: Most potent, grave, and august Italian prince, son
of a sovereign supreme over a nest of inaccessible valleys, lying
between Switzerland, the Milanese, and Savoy, permit me to humble
myself at your highness's feet, in humble acknowledgment of the
ecstasy into which you have thrown me.  By the honor of a swindler,
you are one of the wonders of our world.  I always thought myself the
first man in the line; but in good truth I doff my bonnet before you,
whose genius seems to supersede the lessons of experience.  Then you
are no longer uneasy about the result, said I to my colleague in
iniquity.  O! as to that, not in the least, answered he.  I no longer
care a fig for Master Pedro; let him come as soon as he pleases, we
are a match for him.  Here we are, then, Moralez and myself, safe
seated on the saddle, and rising in our stirrups.  We even went so
far as to begin settling the course we should pursue with the
fortune, on which we reckoned so securely, that if it had already
been in our pockets, we could not have chuckled more triumphantly
over the proverb of "a bird in the hand."  Yet we were not in actual
possession, which is more than legal right; and the sequel of the
adventure proved to us, that many things fall out between the cup and
the lip.

We very soon saw the young man of Calatrava returning.  He was
accompanied by two citizens and by an alguazil, whose dignity was as
much supported by his whiskers, and by the lowering overcast of his
swarthy aspect, as by the weight of his official character.
Florence's father was of the party.  Signor de Moyadas, said Pedro to
him, here are three honest people come to answer for me; they are
acquainted with my person, and can tell you who I am.  Yes,
undoubtedly, exclaimed the alguazil, I can depose to the fact.  I
certify to all those whom it may concern, that you are known to me;
your name is Pedro, and you are the only son of Juan Valez de la
Membrilla: whosoever dares to maintain the contrary is an impostor.
I believe you implicitly, master alguazil, said the good creature
Jerome de Moyadas, rather dryly.  Your evidence is gospel to me, as
well as that of these fair and honest tradesmen you have brought with
you.  I am fully satisfied that the young gentleman on whose behalf
you come is the only son of my brother's correspondent.  But what is
that to me?  I am no longer in the humor to give him my daughter; so
there is an end of that.

O! then it is quite another matter, said the alguazil.  I only come
to your house for the purpose of assuring you that this young man is
no impostor.  You have the authority of a parent over your child, and
no one has any right to dictate to you how you are to marry her, and
whether you will or no.  Neither do I on my part, interrupted Pedro,
pretend to lay any force on the inclinations of Signor de Moyadas;
but he will perhaps allow me to ask him why he has so suddenly
changed his resolution.  Has he any reason to be dissatisfied with
me?  Alas! let me at least understand, that in losing the sweet hope
of becoming his son-in-law, my promised bliss has not been wrested
from me by any misconduct of my own.  I have no complaint to make of
you, answered the old man; nay, I will even tell you more; it is with
sincere sorrow that I find myself under the necessity of breaking my
word with you, and I heartily beseech you to forgive me for having
done so.  I am persuaded that you are too generous to bear me any
ill-will for having thrown the balance into the scale of a rival, who
has saved my life.  You see him here, pursued he, introducing my
noble self; this is the illustrious personage who threw round me the
shield of his protection in my great peril; and, the better still to
apologize for my seemingly harsh treatment of yourself, you are to
know that he is an Italian prince.

At these last words, Pedro was dumfounded, and looked as if he could
not help it.  The two tradesmen opened their eyes as wide as they
could stare, with surprise at finding themselves for the first time
in princely society.  But the alguazil, in the habit of looking at
things with the cross eye of suspicion, divined most perspicuously
that this marvellous adventure must be a complete humbug; and the
verification of the prophecy was calculated to put money into the
pocket of the prophet.  He therefore conned over my countenance with
a very inquisitive regard; but as my features, which were new to
justice, threw him out most cruelly from hunting down the game he was
in chase of, he had no alternative but to try his luck on my
companion.  Unfortunately for my highness of the inaccessible
valleys, he knew again the hang-dog features of Moralez; and
recollecting to have seen him within the purlieus of a jail, Ay, ay!
exclaimed he, this is one of my established customers.  This
gentleman is a particular acquaintance of mine, and you may take his
character from me for one of the rankest rascals within the kingdoms
and principalities of Spain.  Softly! look before you leap, most
adventurous alguazil, said Jerome de Moyadas; this lad, of whom you
draw so unfavorable a picture, is in the travelling retinue of a
prince.  So much the better, retorted the alguazil; a man would not
desire clearer evidence on which to bring in his verdict.  If we can
but hang the servant, we shall soon send the master to the devil.
The case is as undeniable as a feed counsel's plea; these pleasant
sparks are a couple of fortune-hunters, who have laid their heads
together to take you in.  I am an old hound upon this scent; so that,
by way of proof presumptive that these merry vagabonds are within the
contemplation of the law in that case provided, I shall lodge them
where they will be well taken care of.  They will have plenty of time
for meditation under the chastising philosophy of a turnkey; or
should confinement fail to mend their morals, we have a sort of
tangible discipline, which insinuates reformation by the inlet of a
smarting hide.  Stop there, and bethink you in good time, master
officer, rejoined the old gentleman: we must not draw the cord
tighter than it will bear.  You never make any bones, you hangers-on
of the law, about hurting the feelings of better men than yourselves.
May not this servant be a common cheat, without his master being a
swindler?  Princes are persons of honor as a matter of course; yet
the retainers to a court are inordinate rascals; it requires no
conjurer to find that out.  Are you playing into the hands of your
deluders, with your princes? interrupted the alguazil.  This new
manufacturer of false pretences is a proficient, take my word for it;
but I shall quench his zeal in the service, and gravel the ingenuity
of his partner, with a _whereas_ and a commitment in due form.  The
scouts of justice are all round the door, who will worry their game
every inch of the chase, if they do not suffer themselves to be taken
quietly on their form.  So come along, may it please your serene
highness; let us proceed to our destination.

This upshot of the business was a death-blow to me, as well as to
Moralez; and our confusion did but infuse doubts into the mind of
Jerome de Moyadas, or rather burned, sunk, and destroyed us in his
esteem.  He began rather to think, not without reason, that we had
some little design to impose on his credulity.  Nevertheless he acted
on this occasion in the spirit of a man of honor and a gentleman.  My
good friend and protector, said he to the alguazil, your conjectures
may be without foundation; on the other hand, they may turn out to
have too much truth in them.  Whichever of these alternatives may be
the fact, let us not look too curiously into their characters.  They
are both young, and have time enough for amendment if they want it;
let them go their ways, and withdraw whithersoever it may best please
them.  Make no opposition, I beseech you, to their safe egress; it is
a favor which you may consider as done to me, and my motive for
asking it is to acquit myself of my debt to them.  If my heart was
not too soft for my profession, answered the alguazil, I should lodge
these pretty gentlemen in limbo, in defiance of all your pleadings in
their favor; but your eloquence and my susceptibility have relaxed
the stern demeanor of justice for this evening.  Let them, however,
leave town on the spur of the occasion; for if I come across them
to-morrow, and there is any faith in an alguazil, they shall see such
sport as will be no sport to them.  When it was signified to Moralez
and me, culprits as we were, that we were to be let off scot free, we
polished up the brass upon our foreheads a little.  It was time now
to bounce and swagger, and to maintain that we were men of undeniable
respectability; but the alguazil looked askew at us, and muttered
that least said was soonest mended.  I do not know how, but those
gentry have a strange knack of curbing our genius; they are complete
lords of the ascendant.  Florence and her dowry, therefore, were lost
to Pedro de la Membrilla by a turn of the dice, and we may conclude
that he was received as the son-in-law of Jerome de Moyadas.  I took
to my heels with my companion.  We blundered on the road to Truxillo,
with the consolation at our hearts of having at least pocketed a
hundred pistoles by our frolic.  An hour before nightfall we passed
through a little village, with the intention of putting up for the
evening at the next stage.  An inn of very tolerable appearance for
the place attracted our notice.  The landlord and landlady were
sitting at the door, on a long bench such as usually graces a
pot-house porch.  Our host, a tall man, withered, and with one foot
in the grave, was tinkling on a cracked guitar to the unbounded
emolument of his wife, whose faculties seemed to hang in rapture on
the performance.  Gentlemen, cried out the intrepid tavern-keeper,
when he found that we were not upon the halt, you will do well to
stop here; you may fare worse farther off.  There is a devil of a
three leagues to the nearest village, and you will find nothing to
make you amends for what you leave behind; you may assure yourselves
of that.  Take a word of advice, know when you are well used; I will
treat you with the fat of the land, and charge you at the lowest
rate.  There was no resisting such a plea.  We came up to our
courteous entertainers, paid them the compliments of course, and
sitting down by their side, the conversation was supported by all
four on the indifferent topics of the day.  Our host announced
himself as an officer of the Holy Brotherhood, and his rib was a fat,
laughing squab of a woman, with outward good nature, but with an eye
to make the most of her commodities.

Our discourse was broken in upon by the arrival of from twelve to
fifteen riders, some mounted on mules, others on horseback, followed
by about thirty sumpter-mules laden with packages.  Ah! what a
princely retinue! exclaimed the landlord at the sight of so much
company: where can I put them all?  In an instant the village was
crammed full of men and beasts.  As luck would have it, there was
near the inn an immense barn, where the sumpter-mules and their
packages were secured; the saddle-mules and horses were taken care of
in other places.  As for their masters, they thought less about
bespeaking beds than about calling for the bill of fare, and ordering
a good supper.  The host and hostess, with a servant girl whom they
kept, were all upon the alert to make things agreeable.  They laid a
heavy hand upon all the fowls in the poultry-yard.  These precious
roasts, with some undisguised rabbits, cats in the masquerade of a
fricassee, and a deluging tureen of soup, stinking of cabbage and
greasy with mutton fat, were enough to have given a sickener to the
inveterate stomachs of a regiment.

As for Moralez and myself, we cast a scrutinizing eye on these
troopers; nor were they behindhand in passing their secret judgments
upon us.  At last we came together in conversation, and it was
proposed on our part, if they had no objection, that we should all
sup together.  They assured us that they should be extremely happy in
our company.  Here we are, then, all seated round the table.  There
was one among them who seemed to take the lead; and for whom the
rest, though in the main they were on the most intimate terms with
him, thought it necessary on some occasions to testify their
deference.  In case of a dispute, this high gentleman assumed the
umpire; he talked in a tone above the common pitch, going so far
sometimes as to contradict in no very courtly phrase the sentiments
of others, who, far from giving him back his own, were ready to swear
to his assertions and crouch under his rebuke.  By accident the
discourse turned on Andalusia.  Moralez, happening to launch out into
the praise of Seville, the man about whom I have been talking said to
him, My good fellow-traveller, you are ringing the chimes on the city
which gave birth to me; at least I am a native of the neighborhood,
since the little town of Mayrena is answerable for my appearance in
the world.  I have the same story to tell you, answered my companion.
I am also of Mayrena; and it is scarcely possible but that our
families should be acquainted.  Whose son are you?  An honest
notary's, replied the stranger, by name Martin Moralez.  As fate will
have it, exclaimed my comrade with emotion, the adventure is very
remarkable!  You are, then, my eldest brother, Manuel Moralez.
Exactly so, said the other; and if my senses do not deceive me, you
your very self are my little brother Lewis, whom I left in the cradle
when I turned my back upon my father's house?  You are right in your
conjectures, answered my honest colleague.  At this discovery, they
both got up from table, and almost hugged the breath out of each
other's bodies.  At last Signor Manuel said to the company,
Gentlemen, this circumstance is altogether marvellous.  By mere
chance, I have met with a brother, and have been challenged by him,
whom I have not seen for more than twenty years: allow me to
introduce him.  At once all the travellers, who had risen from their
seats out of curiosity and good manners, paid their compliments to
the younger Moralez, and made him run the gantlet through their
salutations.  When these were over, the party returned to the table;
nor did they think any more of an adjournment.  Bed-time never
entered into their heads.  The two brothers sat next to one another,
and talked in a whisper about their family affairs; the other guests
plied the bottle, and made merry in a louder key.

Lewis had a long conference with Manuel, and afterwards taking me
aside, said to me, All these troopers belong to the household of the
Count de Montanos, whom the king has very lately appointed to the
vice-regal government of Majorca.  They are convoying the equipage of
the viceroy to Alicant, where they are to embark.  My brother, who
has risen to be steward to that nobleman, proposes to take me along
with him; and on the difficulty I started about leaving you, he told
me that if you would be of the party, he would procure you a good
berth.  My dear friend, pursued he, I advise you not to stand out
against this proposal.  Let us take flight together for the island of
Majorca.  If we find our quarters pleasant, we will fix there; and if
they are otherwise, we have nothing to do but to return into Spain.

I accepted the proposal with the best grace possible.  What a
reënforcement, in the person of young Moralez and myself, to the
household of the count!  We took our departure in a body from the
inn, before daybreak.  We got to the city of Alicant by long stages,
and there I bought a guitar, and arranged my dress in a manner suited
to my new destination, before we embarked.  Nothing ran in my head
but the island of Majorca; and Lewis Moralez was a new man as well as
myself.  It should seem as though we had bid farewell to the
rogueries of this wicked world.  Yet, not to play the liar in the ear
of so rigorous a confessor as my own conscience, we had a mind not to
pass for villains incarnate, now that we had got into company that
had some pretensions to decency: and that was the sum total of our
honesty.  The natural bent of our genius remained much the same; we
were still men of business, but just now keeping a vacation.  In
short, we went on board gallantly and gayly in this lucid interval of
innocence, and had no idea but of landing at Majorca under the
especial care of Neptune and Æolus.  Hardly, however, had we cleared
the gulf of Alicant, when a sudden and violent storm arose, enough to
have frightened better men.  Now is my opportunity, or never, to
speak of moving accidents by flood; to set the atmosphere on fire,
and give a louder explosion to the thunder-cloud; to compare the
whistling of the winds to the factions of a populace, and the rolling
of the waves to the shock of conflicting hosts; with other such
old-fashioned phraseologies as have been heirlooms of Parnassus from
time immemorial.  But it is useless to be poetical without invention.
Suffice it therefore to say, in slang metaphor, that the storm was a
devil of a storm, and obliged us to stand in for the point of
Cabrera.  This is a desert island, with a small fort, at that time
garrisoned by an officer and five or six soldiers.  Our reception was
hospitable and cordial.

As it was necessary for us to stay there some days, for the purpose
of refitting our sails and rigging, we devised various kinds of
amusements to keep off the foul fiend melancholy.  Every one did as
seemed good in his own eyes: some played at cards, others diverted
themselves in other ways; but as for me, I went about exploring the
island, with such of our gentry as had either a curiosity or a taste
for the picturesque.  We were frequently obliged to clamber from rock
to rock; for the face of the country is rugged, and the soil scanty,
presenting a scene difficult of access, but interesting from its
wildness.  One day, while we were speculating on these dry and barren
prospects, and extracting a moral from the vagaries of nature, who
can swell into the fruitful mother and the copious nurse, or shrink
into the lean and loathsome skeleton, as she pleases, our sense was
all at once regaled with a most delicious fragrance.  We turned as
with a common impulse towards the east, whence the scented gale
seemed to come.  To our utter astonishment, we discovered among the
rocks a green plat of considerable dimensions, gay with honeysuckles
more luxuriant and more odorous than even those which thrive so
greatly in the climate of Andalusia.  We were not sorry to approach
nearer these delicious shrubs, which were wasting their sweetness in
such unchecked profusion, when it turned out that they lined the
entrance of a very deep cavern.  The opening was wide, and the recess
in consequence partially illuminated.  We were determined to explore;
and descended by some stone steps overgrown with flowers on each
side, so that it was difficult to say whether the approach was formed
by art or nature.  When we had got down, we saw several little
streams winding over a sand, the yellow lustre of which outrivalled
gold.  These drew their sources from the continual distillations of
the rock within, and lost themselves again in the hollows of the
ground.  The water looked so clear, that we were tempted to drink of
it; and such was its freshness, that we made a party to return the
next day, with some bottles of generous wine, which we were persuaded
would acquire new zest from the retreat where they were to be quaffed.

It was not without regret that we left so agreeable a place; nor did
we omit, on our return to the fort, boasting among our comrades of so
interesting a discovery.  The commander of the fortress, however,
with the warmest professions of friendship, warned us against going
any more to the cavern, with which we were so much delighted.  And
why so? said I; is there anything to be afraid of?  Most undoubtedly,
answered he.  The corsairs of Algiers and Tripoli sometimes land upon
this island, for the purpose of watering at that spring.  One day
they surprised two soldiers of my garrison there, whom they carried
into slavery.  It was in vain that the officer assumed a tone of kind
dissuasion: nothing could prevent us from going.  We fancied that he
meant to play upon our fears; and the day following I returned to the
cavern with three adventurous blades of our establishment.  We were
even foolhardy enough to leave our firearms behind as a sort of
bravado.  Young Moralez declined being of the party: the fort and the
gaming-table had more charms for him, as well as for his brother.

We went down to the bottom of the cave as on the preceding day, and
set some bottles of the wine we had brought with us to cool in the
rivulets.  While we were enjoying them in all the luxury of elegant
conviviality, our wits set in motion by the novelty of the scene, and
the echo reverberating to the music of our guitars, we espied at the
mouth of the cavern several abominable faces overgrown with whiskers;
neither did their turbans and Turkish dresses render them a whit more
amiable in our conceits.  We nevertheless took it into our heads that
it was a frolic of our own party, set on by the commanding officer of
the fort, and that they had disguised themselves for the purpose of
playing us a trick.  With this impression on our minds, we set up a
horse-laugh, and allowed a quiet entrance to about ten, without
thinking of making any resistance.  In a few moments our eyes were
opened to that fatal error, and we were convinced, in sober sadness,
that it was a corsair at the head of his crew, come to carry us away.
Surrender, you Christian dogs, cried he, in most outlandish
Castilian, or prepare for instant death.  At the same time the men
who accompanied him levelled their pieces at us, and our ribs would
have been well lined with the contents, if we had resisted in the
least.  Slavery seemed the better alternative than death, so that we
delivered our swords to the pirate.  He ordered us to be handcuffed
and carried on board his vessel, which was moored not far off; then,
setting sail, he steered with a fair wind towards Algiers.

Thus were we punished for having neglected the warning given us by
the officer of the garrison.  The first thing the corsair did was to
put his hand into our pockets and make free with our money.  No bad
windfall for him!  The two hundred pistoles from the greenhorns at
Placentia; the hundred which Moralez had received from Jerome de
Movadas, and which, as ill luck would have it, were in my custody;
all this was swept away without a single qualm of conscience.  My
companions, too, had their purses well lined; and it was all fish
that came to the net.  The pirate seemed to chuckle at so successful
a drag; and the scoundrel, not contented with chousing us of our
cash, insulted us with his infernal Moorish witticisms: but the edge
of his satire was not half so keen as the dire necessity which made
us the subject of it.  After a thousand clumsy sarcasms, he called
for the bottles which we had set to cool in the fountain; those
irreligious Mahometans not having scrupled to load their consciences
with the conveyance of the unholy fermentation.  The master and his
man pledged one another in many a Christian bumper, and drank to our
better acquaintance with a most provoking mockery.

While this farce was acting, my comrades wore a hanging look, which
testified how pleasantly their thoughts were employed.  They were so
much the more out of conceit with their captivity, as they thought
they had drawn a prize in the lottery of human life.  The island of
Majorca, with all its luxuries and delights, was a melancholy
contrast with their present situation.  For my part, I had the good
sense to take things as I found them.  Less put out of my way by my
misfortune than the rest, I joined in conversation with this
transmarine joker, and showed him that wit was the common language of
Africa and of Europe.  He was pleased with my accommodating spirit.
Young man, said he, instead of groaning and sighing, you do well to
arm yourself with patience, and to fall in with the current of your
destiny.  Play us a little air, continued he, observing that I had a
guitar by my side; let us have a specimen of your skill.  I complied
with his command, as soon as my arms were loosened from their
confinement, and began to thrum away in a style that drew down the
applauses of my discerning audience.  It is true that I had been
taught by the best master in Madrid, and that I played very tolerably
for an amateur upon that instrument.  A song was then called for, and
my voice gave equal satisfaction.  All the Turks on board testified
by gestures of admiration the delight with which my performance
inspired them; from which circumstance it was but modest to conclude,
that vocal music had made no very extraordinary progress in their
part of the world.  The pirate whispered in my ear, that my slavery
should be no disadvantage to me; and that with my talents I might
reckon upon an employment, by which my lot would be rendered not only
supportable, but happy.

I felt somewhat encouraged by these assurances; but, flattering as
they were, I was not without my uneasiness as to the employment,
which the corsair held out as a nameless but invaluable boon.  When
we arrived in the port of Algiers, a great number of persons were
collected to receive us; and we had not yet disembarked, when they
uttered a thousand shouts of joy.  Add to this, that the air reëchoed
with a confused sound of trumpets, of Moorish flutes, and of other
instruments, the fashion of that country, forming a symphony of
deafening clangor, but very doubtful harmony.  The occasion of these
rejoicings proceeded from a false report, which had been current
about the town.  It had been the general talk that the renegado
Mahomet--meaning our amiable pirate--had lost his life in the attack
of a large Genoese vessel; so that all his friends, informed of his
return, were eager to hail him with these thundering demonstrations
of attachment.

We had no sooner set foot on shore, than my companions and myself
were conducted to the palace of the bashaw Soliman, where a Christian
secretary; questioning us individually one after another, inquired
into our names, our ages, our country, our religion, and our
qualifications.  Then Mahomet, presenting me to the bashaw, paid my
voice more compliments than it deserved, and told him that I played
on the guitar with a most ravishing expression.  This was enough to
influence Soliman in his choice of me for his own immediate service.
I took up my abode therefore in his seraglio.  The other captives
were led into the public market, and sold there at the usual rate of
Christian cattle.  What Mahomet had foretold to me on shipboard was
completely verified; my condition was exactly to my mind.  I was not
consigned to the stronghold of a prison, nor kept to any works of
oppressive labor.  My indulgent master stationed me in a particular
quarter, with five or six slaves of superior rank, who were in
momentary expectation of being ransomed, and were therefore favored
in the distribution of our tasks.  The care of watering the
orange-trees and flowers in the gardens was allotted as my portion.
There could not be a more agreeable or less fatiguing employment.

Soliman was a man about forty years of age, well made as to figure,
tolerably accomplished as to his mind, and as much of a lady's man as
could be expected from a Turk.  His favorite was a Cashmirian, whose
wit and beauty had acquired an absolute dominion over his affections.
He loved her even to idolatry.  Not a day but he paid his court to
her by some elegant entertainment; at one time a concert of vocal and
instrumental music, at another, a dramatic performance after the
fashion of the Turks, which fashion implies a loose sort of comedy,
where moral and modesty enter about as much into the contemplation of
the contriver, as do Aristotle and his unities.  The favorite, whose
name was Farrukhnaz, was passionately enamoured of these exhibitions;
she sometimes even got up among her own women some Arabian melodrames
to be performed before her admirer.  She took some of the parts
herself, and charmed the spectators by the abundant grace and
vivacity of her action.  One day, when I was among the musicians at
one of these representations, Soliman ordered me to play on the
guitar, and to sing a solo between the acts of the piece.  I had the
good fortune to give satisfaction, and was received with applause.
The favorite herself, if my vanity did not mislead me, cast glances
towards me of no unfavorable interpretation.

On the next day, as I was watering the orange-trees in the gardens,
there passed close by me a eunuch, who, without stopping or saying a
word, threw down a note at my feet.  I picked it up with an emotion
strangely compounded of pleasure and alarm.  I crouched upon the
ground, for fear of being observed from the windows of the seraglio;
and, concealing myself behind the boxes in which the orange-trees
were planted, opened this unexpected enclosure.  There I found a
diamond of very considerable value, and these words, in genuine
Castilian: "Young Christian, return thanks to heaven for your
captivity.  Love and fortune will render it the harbinger of your
bliss: love, if you are alive to the attractions of a fine person,
and fortune, if you have the hardihood to confront danger in every
direction."

I could not for a moment doubt that the letter was written by the
favorite sultana: the style and the diamond were more than
presumptive evidence against her.  Besides that nature did not cast
me in the mould of a coward, the vanity of keeping up a good
understanding with the mistress of a scoundrelly Mahometan in office,
and, more than all the temptations of vanity or inclination, the hope
of cajoling her out of four times as much as the curmudgeon her
master would demand for my ransom, put me into conceit with the
intention of trying my luck at a venture, whatever risk might be
incurred in the experiment.  I went on with my gardening, but always
harping on the means of getting into the apartment of Farrukhnaz, or
rather waiting till she opened a door of communication; for I was
clearly of opinion that she would not stop upon the threshold, but
meet me half way in the career of love and danger.  My conjecture was
not altogether without foundation.  The same eunuch who had led me
into this amorous reverie passed the same way an hour afterwards, and
said to me, Christian, have you communed with your own
determinations, and will you win a fair lady by abjuring a faint
heart?  I answered in the affirmative.  Well then, rejoined he,
heaven sprinkle its dew upon your resolutions!  You shall see me
betimes to-morrow morning.  With this comfortable assurance, he
withdrew.  The following day, I actually saw him make his appearance
about eight o'clock in the morning.  He made a signal for me to go
along with him: I obeyed the summons; and he conducted me into a hall
where was a large wrapper of canvas, which he and another eunuch had
just brought thither, with the design of carrying it to the sultana's
apartment, for the purpose of furnishing a scene for an Arabian
pantomime, in preparation for the amusement of the bashaw.

The two eunuchs unrolled the cloth, and laid me at my length on the
proscenium; then, at the risk of turning the farce into a tragedy by
stifling me, they rolled it up again, with its palpitating contents.
In the next place, taking hold of it at each end, they conveyed me
with impunity by this device into the chamber devoted to the repose
of the beautiful Cashmirian.  She was alone with an old slave devoted
to her wishes.  They helped each other to unroll their precious bale
of goods; and Farrukhnaz, at the sight of her consignment, set up
such an alarm of delight, as exhibited the woman of the East, without
forgetting her prurient propensities.  With all my natural bias
towards adventure, I could not recognize myself as at once
transported into the private apartment of the women, without
something like an inauspicious damp upon my joy.  The lady was aware
of my feelings, and anxious to dissipate the unpleasant part of them.
Young man, said she, you have nothing to fear.  Soliman is just gone
to his country-house: he is safely lodged for the day; so that we
shall be able to entertain one another here at our ease.

Hints like these rallied my scattered spirits, and gave a cast to my
countenance which confirmed the speculation of the favorite.  You
have won my heart, pursued she, and it is in my contemplation to
soften the severity of your bondage.  You seem to be worthy of the
sentiments which I have conceived for you.  Though disguised under
the garb of a slave, your air is noble, and your physiognomy of a
character to recommend you to the good graces of a lady.  Such an
exterior must belong to one above the common.  Unbosom yourself to me
in confidence; tell me who you are.  I know that captives of superior
condition and family disguise their real circumstances, to be
redeemed at a lower rate: but you have no inducement to practise such
a deception on me; and it would even be a precaution revolting to my
designs in your favor, since I here pledge myself for your liberty.
Deal with sincerity therefore, and own to me at once that you are a
youth of illustrious rank.  In good earnest then, madam, answered I,
it would ill become me to repay your generous partiality with
dissimulation.  You are absolutely bent upon it, that I should
intrust you with the secret of my quality, and commands like yours
are not to be questioned or resisted.  I am the son of a Spanish
grandee.  And so it might actually have been, for anything that I
know to the contrary; at all events, the sultana gave me credit for
it, so that with considerable self-congratulation at having fixed her
regard on a gentleman of some little figure in the world, she assured
me that it only depended on herself whether or no we should meet
pretty often in private.  In fact, we were no niggards of our mutual
good will at the very first approaches.  I never met with a woman who
was more what a man wishes her to be.  She was, besides, an expert
linguist, above all in Castilian, which she spoke with fluency and
purity.  When she conceived it to be time for us to part, I got by
her order into a large osier basket, with an embroidered silk
covering of her own manufacture; then the two slaves who had brought
me in were called, to carry me out as a present from the favorite to
her deluded lord; for under this pretence it is easy to screen any
amorous exports from the inspection of the officers intrusted with
the superintendence of the women.

As for Farrukhnaz and myself, we were not slack in other devices to
bring us together; and that lovely captive inspired me by degrees
with as much love as she herself entertained for me.  Our good
understanding was kept a profound secret for full two months,
notwithstanding the extreme difficulty in a seraglio of veiling the
mysteries of love for any length of time from those uninitiated,
whose eyes are jaundiced by their own disqualification.  Neither was
the discovery made at last by the means of envious spies.  An unlucky
chance disconcerted all our little arrangements, and the features of
my fortune were at once aggravated into a frown.  One day, when I had
been introduced into the presence of the sultana, in the body of an
artificial dragon, invented as a machine for a spectacle, while we
were parleying most amicably together, Soliman, to whom we had given
credit for having gone out of town, made his unwelcome appearance.
He entered so abruptly into his favorite's apartment, as scarcely to
leave time for the old slave to give us notice of his approach.
Still less was there any opportunity to conceal me.  Thus therefore,
with all my enormities on my head, was I the first object which
presented itself to the astonished eyes of the bashaw.

He seemed considerably startled at the sight; and his countenance
flashed with indignation on the instant.  I considered myself as a
wretch, just hovering on the brink of the grave; and death seemed
arrayed in all the paraphernalia of torture.  As for Farrukhnaz, it
was very evident, in good truth, that she was miserably frightened;
but instead of owning her crime and imploring pardon, she said to
Soliman, My lord, before you pronounce my sentence, be pleased to
hear my defence.  Appearances, doubtless, condemn me; and it must
strike you that I have committed an act of treason worthy the most
dreadful punishments.  It is true, I have brought this young captive
hither; it is true that I have introduced him into my apartment, with
just such artifices as I should have used if I had entertained a
violent passion for him.  And yet, I call our great prophet to
witness, in spite of these seeming irregularities, I am not faithless
to you.  It was my wish to converse with this Christian slave, for
the purpose of disengaging him from his own sect, and proselyting him
to that of the true believers.  But I have found in him a principle
of resistance for which I was not well prepared.  I have, however,
conquered his prejudices; and he came to give me an assurance that he
would embrace Mahometanism.

I do not mean to deny that it was an act of duty to have contradicted
the favorite flatly, without paying the least attention to the
dangerous predicament in which I stood; but my spirits were taken by
surprise; the beloved partner of my imprudence was hovering on the
brink of perdition; and my own fate was involved with hers.  How
could I do otherwise than give a silent and perturbed assent to her
impious fiction?  My tongue, indeed, refused to ratify it; but the
bashaw, persuaded by my acquiescence that his mistress had told him
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, suffered his angry spirit
to be tranquillized.  Madam, answered he, I am willing to believe
that you have committed no infidelity towards me; and that the desire
of doing a thing agreeable to the prophet has been the means of
leading you on to risk so hazardous and delicate a proceeding.  I
forgive, therefore, your imprudence, on condition that this captive
assumes the turban on the spot.  He sent immediately for a priest[*]
to initiate me.  My dress was changed with all due ceremony into the
Turkish.  They did just what they pleased with me; nor had I the
courage to object: or, to do myself more justice, I knew not what was
becoming of me, in so dreadful a disorder of all my faculties and
feelings.  There are other good Christians in the world, who have
been guilty of apostatizing on less imminent emergencies!


[*] These wandering priests are at present known in Africa by the
name of Marabut.  The first gymnosophists of Ethiopia most probably
were nothing more.--TRANSLATOR.


After the ceremony, I took my leave of the seraglio, to go and
possess myself, under the name of Sidy Hali, of an inferior office
which Soliman had given me.  I never saw the sultana more; but a
eunuch of hers came one day to look after me.  He brought with him,
as a present from his mistress, jewels to a very considerable amount,
accompanied with a letter, in which the lady assured me she should
never forget my generous compliance, in turning Mahometan to save her
life.  In point of fact, besides these rich gifts, lavished upon me
by Farrukhnaz, I obtained through her interest a more considerable
employment than my first, and in the course of six or seven years
became one of the richest renegadoes in the town of Algiers.

You must be perfectly aware, that if I assisted at the prayers put up
by the Mussulmans in their mosques, or fulfilled the other
observances of their religion, it was all a mere copy of my
countenance.  My inclination was always uniform and determined as to
returning before my death into the bosom of our holy church; and with
this view I looked forward to withdrawing some time or other into
Spain or Italy with the riches I should have accumulated.  But there
seemed no reason whatever against enjoying life in the interval.  I
was established in a magnificent mansion, with gardens of extent and
beauty, a numerous train of slaves, and a well-appointed equipage of
pretty girls in my seraglio.  Though the Mahometans are forbidden the
use of wine in that country, they are not backward for the most part
in their stolen libations.  As for me, my orgies were without either
a mask or a blush, after the manner of my brother renegadoes.  I
remember in particular two of my bottle companions, with whom I often
drank down the night before we rose from table.  One was a Jew, and
the other an Arabian.  I took them to be good sort of people; and,
with that impression, lived in unconstrained familiarity with them.
One evening I invited them to sup at my house.  On that very day a
dog of mine died--it was a pet; we performed our pious ablutions on
his lifeless clay, and buried him with all the solemn obsequies
attendant on a Mahometan funeral.  This act of ours was not designed
to turn the religion we outwardly professed into ridicule; it was
only to furnish ourselves with amusement, and give loose to a
ludicrous whim which struck us in the moment of jollity, that of
paying the last offices of humanity to my dog.

This action was, however, very near laying me by the heels.  On the
following day there came a fellow to my house, saying, Master Sidy
Hali, it is no laughing matter that induces me to pay you this visit.
My employer, the cadi, wants to have a word in your ear; be so good,
if you please, as just to step to his office, without loss of time.
An Arabian merchant, who supped with you last night, has laid an
information respecting a certain act of irreverence perpetrated by
you, on occasion of a dog which you buried.  It is on that charge
that I summon you to appear this day before the judge; and, in case
of failure, you are hereby warned that you will be the subject of a
criminal prosecution.  Away went he, leaving me to digest his
discourse; but the citation stuck in my throat, and took away my
appetite.  The Arabian had no reason whatever to set his face against
me; and I could not comprehend the meaning of the dog's trick the
scoundrel had played me.  The circumstance, at all events, demanded
my prompt attention.  I knew the cadi's character--a saint on the
outside, but a sinner in his heart.  Away went I therefore to wait on
this judge, but not with empty pockets.  He sent for me into his
private room, and began upon me in all the vehemence of pious
indignation: You are a fellow rejected out of paradise! a blasphemer
of our holy law! a man loathsome and abominable to look upon!  You
have performed the funeral service of a Mussulman over a dog.  What
an act of sacrilege!  Is it thus, then, that you reverence our most
holy ceremonies?  Have you only turned Mahometan to laugh at our
devotions and our rites?  My honored master, answered I, the Arabian
who has told you such a cock and bull story is a wolf in sheep's
clothing; and, more than that, he is even an accomplice in my crime,
if it is one, to grant such rest as to peace-parted souls to a
faithful household servant, to an animal with more good qualities
than half the two-legged Mahometans out of Christendom.  His
attachment, besides, to people of merit and consideration in the
world was at once moral and sensible; and at his death he left
several little tokens of remembrance to his friends.  By his last
will and testament, he bequeathed his effects in the manner therein
mentioned, and did me the honor to name me for his executor.  This
old crony came in for twenty crowns, that for thirty, and another for
a cool hundred; but your worship is interested deeply in this
instrument, pursued I, drawing out my purse; he has left you
residuary legatee, and here is the amount of the bequest.  The cadi's
gravity could not but relax, after the posthumous kindness of his
deceased friend; and he laughed outright in the face of the mock
executor.  As we were alone, there was no occasion to make wry mouths
at the purse, and my acquittal was pronounced in these words: Go,
Master Sidy Hali; it was a very pious act of yours, to enlarge the
obsequies of a dog, who had so manly a fellow-feeling for honest
folks.

By this device I got out of the scrape; and if the hint did not
increase my religion, it doubled my circumspection.  I was determined
no longer to open either my cellar or my soul, in presence of Arabian
or Jew.  My bottle companion henceforward was a young gentleman from
Leghorn, who had the happiness of being my slave.  His name was
Azarini.  I was of another kidney from renegadoes in general, who
impose greater hardships on their Christian slaves than do the Turks
themselves.  All my captives waited for the period of their ransom,
without any impatient hankering after home.  My behavior to them was,
in truth, so gentle and fatherly, that many of them assured me they
were more afraid of changing their master than anxious after their
liberty; whatever magic that word may have to the ears of those who
have felt what it is to be deprived of it.

One day the bashaw's corsairs came into port with considerable
prizes.  Their cargo amounted to more than a hundred slaves of either
sex, carried off from the Spanish coast.  Soliman retained but a very
small number, and all the rest were sold.  I happened to go to
market, and bought a Spanish girl ten or twelve years old.  She cried
as if her heart would break, and looked the picture of despair.  It
seemed strange that at her age slavery should make such an impression
on her.  I told her, in Castilian, to combat with her terrors; and
assured her that she was fallen into the hands of a master who had
not put off humanity when he took up the turban.  The little mourner,
not initiated in the trade of grief, pursued the subject of her
lamentations without listening to me.  Her whole soul seemed to be
breathed in her sighs; she descanted on her wretched fate, and
exclaimed from time to time, in softened accents, O my mother, why
were we ever parted?  I could bear my lot with patience, might we
share it together.  With these lamentations on her lips, she turned
round towards a woman of from five-and-forty to fifty, standing at
the distance of several paces, and waiting, with her eyes fixed to
the ground, in a determined, sullen silence, till she met with a
purchaser.  I asked my young bargain if the lady she was looking at
was her mother.  Alas! she is, indeed, sir, replied the girl; for the
love of God, do not let me be parted from her.  Well, then, my
distressed little damsel, said I, if it will give you any pleasure,
there is no more to do than to settle you both in the same quarters,
and then you will give over your murmuring.  On the very moment I
went up to the mother, with the intention of cheapening her; but no
sooner did I cast my eyes on her face, than I knew again, with what
emotion you may guess! the very form and pressure of Lucinda.  Just
heaven! said I within myself, this is my mother!  Nature whispers it
in my ear, and can I doubt her evidence?  On her part, whether a keen
resentment of her woes pointed out an enemy in every object on which
she glanced, or else it might be my dress that disfigured me; ... or
else I might have grown a little older in about a dozen years since
she had seen me; ... but, however historians may account for it, she
did not know me.  But I knew her, and bought her: the pair were sent
home to my house.

When they were safely lodged, I wished to surprise them with the
pleasure of ascertaining who I was.  Madam, said I to Lucinda, is it
possible that my features should not strike you?  'Tis true, I wear
whiskers and a turban: but is Raphael less your son for that?  My
mother thrilled through all her frame at these words, looked at me
with an eager gaze, my whole self rushed into her recollection, and
into each other's arms we affectionately flew.  I then caressed, in
moderated ecstasies, her daughter, who perhaps knew as much about
having a brother as I did about having a sister.  Tell the truth,
said I to my mother; in all your theatrical discoveries, did you ever
meet with one so truly natural and dramatic as this?  My dear son,
answered she in an accent of sorrow, the first sight of you after so
long a separation overwhelmed me with joy; but the revulsion was only
the more deeply distressing.  In what condition, alas! do I again
behold you?  My own slavery is a thousand times less revolting to my
feelings than the disgraceful habiliments ... Heyday!  By all the
powers, madam, interrupted I with a hearty laugh, I am quite
delighted with your newly-acquired morality: this is excellent in an
actress.  Well! well! as heaven is my judge, my honored mamma, you
are mightily improved in your principles, if my transformation
astounds your religious eyesight.  So far from quarrelling with your
turban, consider me rather as an actor, playing a Turkish character
on the stage of the world.  Though a conformist, I am just as much a
Mussulman as when I was in Spain; nay, in the bottom of my heart, I
never was a more firm believer in our Christian creed that at the
present moment.  When you shall become acquainted with all my
hairbreadth escapes, since I have been domesticated in this country,
you will not be rigorous in your censure.  Love has been the cause of
my apostasy, and he who worships at that shrine may be absolved from
all other infidelities.  I have a little of my mother in me, take my
word for it.  Another reason besides ought to moderate your disgust
at seeing me under my present circumstances.  You were expecting to
experience a harsh captivity in Algiers, but you find in your
protector a son, with all the tenderness and reverence befitting his
relation to you, and rich enough to maintain you here in plenty and
comfort, till a favorable opportunity offers of returning with safety
into Spain.  Admit, therefore, the force of the proverb, which says
that evil itself is good for something.

My dear son, said Lucinda, since you fully intend one day to go back
into your own country, and to throw off the mantle of Mahomet, my
scruples are all satisfied.  Thanks to heaven, continued she, I shall
be able to carry back your sister Beatrice safe and sound into
Castile.  Yes, madam, exclaimed I, so you may.  We will all three, as
soon as the season may serve, go and throw ourselves into the bosom
of our family: for I make no matter of doubt but you have still in
Spain other indisputable evidences of your prolific powers.  No, said
my mother, I have only you two, the offspring of my body; and you are
to know that Beatrice is the fruit of a marriage manufactured in as
workmanlike a manner as any within the pale of the church.  And pray,
for what reason, replied I, might not my little sister have been just
as contraband as myself?  How did you ever work yourself up to the
formidable resolution of marrying?  I have heard you say a hundred
times, in my childhood, that there was no benefit of clergy for a
pretty woman who could commit such an offence as to take up with a
husband.  Times and seasons ebb and flow, my son, rejoined she.  Men
of the most resolute character may be shaken in their purposes: and
do you require that a woman should be inflexible in hers?  But I will
now relate to you the story of my life since your departure from
Madrid.  She then began the following recital, which will never be
obliterated from my memory.  I will not withhold from you so curious
a narrative.

It is nearly thirteen years, if you recollect, said my mother, since
you left young Leganez.  Just at that time, the Duke of Medina Celi
told me that he had a mind to sup with me one evening in private.
The day was fixed.  I made preparations for his reception: he came,
and I pleased him.  He required from me the sacrifice of all his
rivals, past, present, and to come.  I came into his terms, in the
hope of being well paid for my complaisance.  There was no deficiency
on that score.  On the very next morning, I received presents from
him, which were followed up by a long train of kindred attentions.  I
was afraid of not being able to hold in my chains a man of his
exalted rank: and this apprehension was the better founded, because
it was a matter of notoriety that he had escaped from the clutches of
several celebrated beauties, whose chains he had worn only for the
purpose of breaking.  But for all that, so far from surfeiting on the
relish of my kindness, his appetite grew by what it fed on.  In
short, I found out the secret of entertaining him, and impounding his
heart, naturally roving, so that it should not go astray according to
its usual volatility.

He had now been my admirer for three months, and I had every reason
to flatter myself that the arrangement would be lasting, when a lady
of my acquaintance and myself happened to go to an assembly, where
the duchess his wife was of the party.  We were invited to a concert
of vocal and instrumental music.  We accidentally seated ourselves
too near the duchess, who took it into her head to be affronted that
I should exhibit my person in a place where she was.  She sent me
word, by one of her women, that she should take it as a favor if I
would quit the room immediately.  I sent back an answer just as saucy
as the message.  The duchess, irritated to fury, laid her wrongs
before her husband, who came to me in person, and said, Retire,
Lucinda.  Though noblemen of the first rank attach themselves to
pretty playthings like yourself, it is highly unbecoming in you to
forget your proper distance.  If we love you better than our wives,
we honor our wives more than you! whenever, therefore, your insolence
shall go so far as to set yourselves up for their rivals under their
very noses, you will always be mortified, and made to know your
places.

Fortunately the duke held his cruel language to me in so low a tone
of voice as not to have been overheard by the people about us.  I
withdrew in deep confusion, and cried with vexation at having
incurred such an affront.  At once, to crown my shame and aggravate
my chastisement, the actors and actresses got hold of the story on
the very same evening.  To do them justice, these gentry must
contrive to entertain a familiar spirit, whose business is to fly
about, and whisper in the ear of one whatever falls out amiss to the
other.  Suppose, for instance, that an actor gets drunk and makes a
fool of himself, or an actress gets hold of a rich cully and makes a
fool of him!  The green-room is sure to ring with all the
particulars, and a few more than are true.  All my kindred of the
sock and buskin were informed at once of what had happened at the
concert, and a blessed life they led me with their quips and
quiddities.  Never was there charity like theirs.  Without beginning
at home, heaven only knows where it ends!  But I held myself too high
to be affected by their jibes and jeers: nor did even the loss of the
Duke de Medina Celi hang heavy on my spirits; for true it was, I
never saw him more at my toilet, but learned, a very short time
after, that he had got into the trammels of a little warbler.

When a theatrical lady has the good luck to be in fashion, she may
change her lover as often as her petticoat: and one noble fool,
should he even recover his wits at the end of three days, serves
excellently well for a decoy to his successor.  No sooner was it
buzzed about Madrid that the duke had raised the siege, than a new
host of would-be conquerors appeared before the trenches.  The very
rivals whom I had sacrificed to his wishes, looking at my charms
through the magnifying medium of delay and disappointment, came back
again in crowds to encounter new caprices; to say nothing of a
thousand fresh hearts, ready to bargain on the mere report of my
being to let.  I had never been so exclusively the mode.  Of all the
men who put in for being cajoled by me, a portly German, belonging to
the Duke of Ossuna's household, seemed to bid highest.  Not that his
personal attractions were by any means the most catching; but then
there were a thousand amiable pistoles on the list of candidates,
scraped together by perquisites in his master's service, and turned
adrift with the prodigality of a prince, in the hope of becoming my
favored lover.  This fat pigeon to be plucked was by name Brutandorf.
As long as his pockets were lined, his reception was warm: empty
purses meet with fastened doors.  The principles on which my
friendship rested were not altogether to his taste.  He came to the
play to look after me during the performance.  I was behind the
scenes.  It was his humor to load me with reproaches; it was mine to
laugh in his face.  This provoked his boorish wrath, and he gave me a
box on the ear, like a clumsy-fisted German as he was.  I set up a
loud scream: the business of the stage was suspended.  I came forward
to the front, and, addressing the Duke of Ossuna, who was at the play
on that occasion with his lady duchess, begged his protection from
the German gallantry of his establishment.  The duke gave orders for
our proceeding with the piece, and intimated that he would hear the
parties after the curtain had dropped.  At the conclusion of the play
I presented myself in all the dreary pomp of tragedy before the duke,
and laid open my griefs in all the majesty of woe.  As for my German
pugilist, his defence was on a level with his provocation: so far
from being sorry for what he had done, his fingers itched to give me
another dressing.  The cause being heard pro and con, the Duke of
Ossuna said to his Scandinavian savage, Brutandorf, I dismiss you
from my service, and beg never to see anything more of you, not
because you have given a box on the ear to an actress, but for your
failure in respect to your master and mistress, in having presumed to
interrupt the progress of the play in their presence.

This decision Was a bitter pill for me to swallow.  It was high
treason against my histrionic majesty, that the German was not turned
off on the ground of having insulted me.  It seemed difficult to
conceive the possibility of a greater crime than that of insulting a
principal actress: and where crimes are parallel, punishments should
tally.  The retribution in this case would have been exemplary; and I
expected no less.  This unpleasant occurrence undeceived me, and
proved, to my mortification, that the public distinguished between
the actors and the personages they may chance to enact.  On this
conviction, my pride revolted at the theatre: I resolved to give up
my engagements, to go and live at a distance from Madrid.  I fixed on
the city of Valencia for the place of my retreat, and went thither
under a feigned character, with a property of twenty thousand ducats
in money and jewels--a sum in my mind more than sufficient to
maintain me for the remainder of my days, since it was my purpose to
lead a retired life, I rented a small house at Valencia, and limited
my establishment to a female servant and a page, who were as ignorant
of my birth, parentage and education, as the rest of the town.  I
gave myself out for the widow of an officer belonging to the king's
household, and intimated that I had made choice of Valencia for my
residence, on the report that it was one of the most agreeable
neighborhoods in Spain.  I saw very little company, and maintained so
reserved a deportment that there never was the slightest suspicion of
my having been an actress.  Yet, notwithstanding all the pains I took
to hide myself from the garish eye of day, I had worse success
against the piercing ken of a gentleman who had a country seat near
Paterna.  He was of an ancient family, in person genteel and manly,
from five-and-thirty to forty years of age, nobly connected, but
scandalously in debt--a contradiction in the vocabulary of honor,
neither more unaccountable nor uncommon in the kingdom of Valencia,
than what takes place every day in other parts of the civilized world.

This gentleman of a generation or two before the present, finding my
person to his liking, was desirous of knowing if in other respects I
was a commodity for his market.  He set every engine at work to
inquire into the most minute particulars, and had the pleasure to
learn from general report, that I was a warm widow with a comfortable
jointure, and a person little, if anything, the worse for wear.  It
struck him that this was just the match; so that in a very short time
an old lady came to my house, telling me from him, that with equal
admiration of my virtues and my charms, he laid himself and his
fortune at my feet, and was ready to lead me to the altar, if I could
condescend so far as to become his wife.  I required three days to
make up my mind on the subject.  In this interval, I made inquiries
about the gentleman; and hearing a good character of him,
notwithstanding the deranged state of his finances, it was my
determination to marry him without more ado, so that the
preliminaries Were soon ratified by a definitive treaty.

Don Manuel de Xerica--for that was my husband's name--took me
immediately after the ceremony to his castle, which had an air of
antiquity highly flattering to his family pride.  He told a story
about one of his ancestors who built it in days of yore, and because
it was not founded the day before yesterday, jumped to a conclusion
that there was not a more ancient house in Spain than that of Xerica.
But nobility, like perishable merchandise, will run to decay; the
castle, shored up on this side and on that, was in the very agony of
tumbling to pieces: what a buttress for Don Manuel and for his old
walls was his marriage with me!  More than half my savings were laid
out on repairs; and the residue was wanted to set us going in a
genteel style among our country neighbors.  Behold me then, you who
can believe it, landed on a new planet, transformed into the
presiding genius of a castle, the Lady Bountiful of my parish; our
stage machinery could never have furnished such a change!  I was too
good an actress not to have supported my new rank and dignity with
appropriate grace, I assumed high airs, theatrical grandeurs, a most
dignified strut and demeanor; all which made the bumpkins conceive a
wonderful idea of my exalted origin.  How would they not have tickled
their fancies at my expense, had they known the real truth of the
case!  The gentry of the neighborhood would have scoffed at me most
unmercifully, and the country people would have been much more chary
of the respect they showed me.

It was now near six years that I had lived very happily with Don
Manuel, when he ended ways, means, and life together.  My legacy
consisted of a broken fortune to splice, and your sister Beatrice,
then more than four years old, to maintain.  The castle, which was
our only tangible resource, was unfortunately mortgaged to several
creditors, the principal of whom was one Bernard Astuto.  Cunning by
name, and cunning by nature!  He practised as an attorney at
Valencia, and bore his faculties in all the infamy of pettifogging;
law and equity conspired in his person to push the trade of cozening
and swindling to the utmost extremity.  To think of falling into the
clutches of such a creditor!  A gentleman's property, under the gripe
of such a claw as this attorney's, affords much the same sport as a
lamb to a wolf, or a dove to a kite.  Nearly after the fashion of
these beasts and birds of prey, did Signor Astuto, when informed of
my husband's death, hover over his victim, concealing his fell
purpose under the ambush of the law.  The whole estate would have
been swallowed up in pleadings, affidavits, demurrers, and
rejoinders, but for the light thrown upon the proceedings by my lucky
star; under whose influence the plaintiff was turned at once into
defendant, and was left without a reply to the arguments of these
all-powerful eyes.  I got to the blind side of him in an interview,
which I contrived during the progress of our litigation.  Nothing was
wanting on my part--I own it frankly--to fill him brimful of the
tender passion; an ardent longing to save my goods, chattels, and
domain, made me practise upon him, to my own disgust, that system of
coquettish tactics and flirtation which had drawn so many former
fools into an ambuscade.  Yet, with all the resources of a veteran, I
was very near letting the attorney escape.  He was so barricaded by
mouldy parchments, so immured in actions and informations, as
scarcely to seem susceptible of any love but the love of law.  The
truth, however, was, that this moping pettifogger, this porer over
ponderous abridgments, this scrawler of acts and deeds, had more
young blood in him than I was aware of, and a trick of looking at me
out of the corner of his eye.  He professed to be a novice in the art
of courtship.  My whole heart and soul, madam, said he, have been
wedded to my profession; and the consequence has been, that the uses
and customs of gallantry have seemed weary, stale, flat, and
unprofitable to me.  But though not a man of outward show, I am well
furnished with the stock in trade of love.  To come to the point at
once, if you can resolve in your mind to marry me, we will make a
grand bonfire of the whole lawsuit; and I will give the go-by to
those rascally creditors, who have joined issue with me in our attack
upon your estate.  You shall have the life interest, and your
daughter the reversion.  So good a bargain for Beatrice and myself
would not allow of any wavering: I closed without delay on the
conditions.  The attorney kept his word most miraculously: he turned
short round upon the other creditors, defeated them with the very
weapons himself had furnished for their joint campaign, and secured
me in the possession of my house and lands.  It was probably the
first time in his life that he had taken up the cause of the widow
and the orphan.

Thus did I become the honored wife of an attorney, without losing my
rank as the lady of the manor.  But this incongruous marriage ruined
me in the esteem of the gentry about Valencia.  The women of quality
looked upon me as a person who had lowered herself, and refused any
longer to visit me.  This inevitably threw me on the acquaintance of
the tradespeople; a circumstance which could not do otherwise than
hurt my feelings a little at first, because I had been accustomed,
for the last six years, to associate only with ladies of the higher
classes.  But it was in vain to fret about it; and I soon found my
level.  I got most intimately acquainted with the wives of my
husband's brethren of the quill and brief.  Their characters were not
a little entertaining.  There was an absurdity in their manners which
tickled me to the very soul.  These trumpery fine ladies held
themselves up for something far above the common run.  Well-a-day!
said I, to myself, every now and then, when they forgot the blue bag:
this is the way of the world!  Every one fancies himself to be
something vastly superior to his neighbor.  I thought we actresses
only did not know our places; women at the lower end of private life,
as far as I see, are just as absurd in their pretensions.  I should
like, by way of check upon their presumption, to propose a law, that
family pictures and pedigrees should be hung up in every house.  Were
the situation left to the choice of the owner, the deuce is in it if
these legal gentry would not cram their scrivening ancestors either
into the cellar or the garret.

After four years passed in the holy state of wedlock, Signor Bernardo
d'Astuto fell sick, and went the way of all flesh.  We had no family.
Between my settlement and what I was worth before, I found myself a
well-endowed widow.  I had too the reputation of being so; and on
this report, a Sicilian gentleman, by name Colifichini, determined to
stick in my skirts, and either ruin or marry me.  The alternative was
kindly left to my own choice.  He was come from Palermo to see Spain,
and, after having satisfied his curiosity, was waiting, as he said at
Valencia for an opportunity of taking his passage back to Sicily.
The spark was not quite five-and-twenty; of an elegant, though
diminutive person; .... in short, his figure absolutely haunted me.
He found the means of getting to the speech of me in private; and, I
will own it to you frankly, I fell distractedly in love with him from
the moment of our very first interview.  On his part, the little
knave flounced over head and ears in admiration of my charms.  I do
really think--God forgive me for it--that we should have been married
out of hand, if the death of the attorney, whose funeral baked meats
were scarcely cold enough to have furnished forth the marriage
tables, would have allowed me to contract a new engagement at so
short a warning.  But, since I had got into the matrimonial line, it
was necessary that where the church makes the feast, the devil should
not send cooks; I therefore took care always to season my nuptials to
the palate of the world at large.

Thus did we agree to delay our coming together for a time, out of a
tender regard to appearances.  Colifichini, in the mean time, devoted
all his attentions to me: his passion, far from languishing, seemed
to become more a part of himself from day to day.  The poor lad was
not too flush of ready money.  This struck my observation; and he was
no longer at a loss for his little pocket expenses.  Besides being
very nearly twice his age, I recollected having laid the men under
contribution in my younger days; so that I looked upon what I was
then lavishing as a sort of restitution, which balanced my debtor and
creditor account, and made me quits with my conscience.  We waited,
as patiently as our frailty would allow, for the period when widows
may in decency so far surmount their grief as to try their luck
again.  When the happy morning rose, we presented ourselves before
the altar, where we plighted our faith to each other by oaths the
most solemn and binding.  We then retired to my castle, where I may
truly say that we lived for two years, less as husband and wife than
as tender and unfettered lovers.  But alas! such a union, so happy
and sentimental, was not long to be the lot of humanity: a pleurisy
carried off my dear Colifichini.

At this passage in her history, I interrupted my mother.  Heyday!
madam, your third husband despatched already?  You must be a most
deadly taking.  What do you mean? answered she: is it for me to
dispute the will of heaven, and lengthen the days parcelled out to
every son of earth?  If I have lost three husbands, it was none of my
fault.  Two of them cost me many a salt tear.  If I buried any with
dry eyes, it was the attorney.  As that was merely a match of
interest, I was easily reconciled to the loss of him.  But to return
to Colifichini: I was going to tell you, that some months after his
death, I had a mind to go and take possession of a country house near
Palermo, which he had settled on me as a jointure, by our marriage
contract.  I took my passage for Sicily with my daughter: but we were
taken on the voyage by Algerine corsairs.  This city was our
destination.  Happily for us, you happened to be at the market where
we were put up for sale.  Had it been otherwise, we must have fallen
into the hands of some barbarian purchaser, who would have used us
ill; and we probably might have passed our whole life in slavery, nor
would you ever have heard of us.

Such was my mother's story.  To return to my own, gentlemen, I gave
her the best apartment in my house, with the liberty of living after
her own fashion; which was a circumstance very agreeable to her
taste.  She had a confirmed habit of loving, brought to such a system
by so many repeated experiments, that it was impossible for her to do
without either a gallant or a husband.  At first she looked with
favor upon some of my slaves: but Hali Pegelin, a Greek renegado, who
sometimes came and called upon us, soon drew all her glances on
himself.  She conceived a stronger passion for him than she had ever
done for Colifichini: and such was her aptitude for pleasing the men,
that she found the way to wind herself about the heart of this man
also.  I seemed as if unconscious of their good understanding; being
then intent only on my return into Spain.  The bashaw had already
given me leave to fit out a vessel, for the purpose of sweeping the
sea and committing acts of piracy.  This armament was my sole object.
Just a week before it was completed, I said to Lucinda, Madam, we
shall take our leave of Algiers almost immediately; so that you will
bid a long farewell to an abode which you cannot but detest.

My mother turned pale at these words, and stood silent and
motionless.  My surprise was extreme.  What do I see? said I to her:
whence comes it that you present such an image of terror and despair?
My design was to fill you with transport; but the effect of my
intelligence seems only to overwhelm you with affliction.  I thought
to have been thanked for my welcome news; and hastened with eagerness
to tell you that all is ready for our departure.  Are you no longer
in the mind to go back into Spain?  No, my son; Spain no longer has
any charms for me, answered my mother.  It has been the scene of all
my sorrows, and I have turned my back on it for ever.  What do I
hear?  exclaimed I, in an agony: ah! tell me rather that it is a
fatal passion which alienates you from your native country.  Just
heavens! what a change!  When you landed here, every object that met
your eyes was hateful to them, but Hali Pegelin has given another
color to your fancy.  I do not deny it, replied Lucinda: I love that
renegado, and mean to take him for my fourth husband.  What an idea!
interrupted I, with horror: you to marry a Mussulman!  You forget
yourself to be a Christian, or rather have hitherto been one only in
name, and not in heart.  Ah! my dear mother, what a futurity do you
present to my imagination!  You are running headlong to your eternal
ruin.  You are going to do voluntarily, and from impure motives, what
I have only done under the pressure of necessity.

I urged many other arguments, in the same strain, to turn her aside
from her purpose, but all my eloquence was wasted; she had made up
her mind to her future destiny.  Not satisfied with following the
bent of her base inclinations, and leaving her son to go and live
with this renegado, she had even formed a design to settle Beatrice
in her own family.  This I opposed with all my might and main.  Ah!
wretched Lucinda, said I, if nothing is capable of keeping you within
the limits of your duty, at least rush on perdition alone; confine
within yourself the fury which possesses you; cast not a young
innocent headlong over a precipice, though you yourself may venture
on the leap.  Lucinda quitted my presence in moody silence.  It
struck me that a remnant of reason still enlightened her, and that
she would not obstinately persevere in requiring her daughter to be
given up to her.  How little did I know of my mother!  One of my
slaves said to me two days afterwards, Sir, take care of yourself.  A
captive belonging to Pegelin has just let me into a secret, of which
you cannot too soon avail yourself.  Your mother has changed her
religion; and as a punishment upon you for having refused Beatrice to
her wishes, it is her purpose to acquaint the bashaw with your
flight.  I could not for a moment doubt but what Lucinda was the
woman to do just what my slave had said she would.  The lady had
given me manifold opportunities of studying her character; and it was
sufficiently evident that, by dint of playing bloody parts in
tragedy, she had familiarized herself with the guilty scenes of real
life.  It would not in the least have gone against her nature to have
got me burned alive; nor, probably, would she have been more affected
by my exit after that fashion, than by the winding up of a dramatic
tale.

The warning of my slave, therefore, was not to be neglected.  My
embarkation was hastened on.  I took some Turks on board, according
to the practice of the Algerine corsairs when going on a piratical
expedition; but I engaged no more than was necessary to blind the
eyes of jealousy, and weighed anchor from the port as soon as
possible, with all my slaves and my sister Beatrice.  You will do
right to suppose that I did not forget, in that moment of anxiety, to
pack up my whole stock of money and jewels, amounting probably to the
worth of six thousand ducats.  When we were fairly out at sea, we
began by securing the Turks.  They were easily mastered, as my slaves
outnumbered them.  We had so favorable a wind, that we made the coast
of Italy in a very short time.  Without let or hinderance, we got
into the harbor of Leghorn, where I thought the whole city must have
come out to see us land.  The father of my slave Azarini, either
accidentally or from curiosity, happened to be among the gazers.  He
looked with all his eyes at my captives, as they came ashore; but,
though his object was to discover his lost son among the number, it
was with little hope of so fortunate a result.  But how powerful is
the plea of nature!  What transports, expressed by mutual embraces,
followed the recognition of a tie so close, but so painfully
interrupted for a time!

As soon as Azarini had acquainted his father who I was, and what
brought me to Leghorn, the old man obliged me, as well as Beatrice,
to accept of an apartment in his house.  I shall pass over in silence
the description of a thousand ceremonies, necessary to be gone
through, in order to my return into the bosom of the church; suffice
it to say, that I forswore Mahometanism with much more sincerity than
I had pledged myself to it.  After having entirely purged myself from
my Algerine leaven, I sold my ship, and set all my slaves at liberty.
As for the Turks, they were committed to prison at Leghorn, to be
exchanged against Christians.  I received kind attention in abundance
from the Azarini family; indeed, the young man married my sister
Beatrice, who, to speak the truth, was no bad match for him, being a
gentleman's daughter, and inheriting the castle of Xerica, which my
mother had taken care to let out to a rich farmer of Paterna, when
she resolved upon her voyage to Sicily.

From Leghorn, after having staid there some time, I departed for
Florence, a town I had a strong desire to see.  I did not go thither
without letters of recommendation.  Azarini, the father, had
connections at the grand duke's court, and introduced me to them as a
Spanish gentleman related to his family.  I tacked don to my name, in
honest rivalry of impudence with other low Spaniards, who take up
that travelling title of honor without compunction, when far enough
from home to set detection at defiance.  Boldly then did I dub myself
Don Raphael, and appeared at court with suitable splendor, on the
strength of what I had brought from Algiers, to keep my nobility from
starving.  The high personages to whom old Azarini had written in my
favor, gave out in their circle that I was a person of quality; so
that with this testimony, and a natural knack I had of giving myself
airs, the deuce must have been in it if I could not have passed
muster for a man of some consequence.  I soon got to be hand in glove
with the principal nobility, and they presented me to the grand duke.
I had the good fortune to make myself agreeable.  It then became an
object with me to pay court to that prince, and to study his humor.
I sucked in with greedy ear all that his most experienced courtiers
said about him, and by their conversation fathomed all his
peculiarities.  Among other things, he encouraged a play of wit; was
fond of good stories and lively repartees.  On this hint I formed
myself.  Every morning I wrote down in my pocket-book such anecdotes
as I meant to rack off in the course of the day.  My stock was
considerably extensive, so that I was a walking budget of balderdash.
Yet even my estate in nonsense required economy, and I began to get
out at elbows, so as to be reduced to borrow from myself, and
mortgage my resources twenty times over; but when the shallow current
of my wit and wisdom was nearly at its summer drought, a torrent of
matter-of-fact lies gave new force to the exhausted stream of
quibble.  Intrigues which never had been intrigued, and practical
jokes which had never been played off, were the tools I worked with,
and exactly to the level of the grand duke; nay, what often happens
to dull dealers in inextinguishable vivacity, the mornings were spent
in financiering those funds of conversation, which were to be drawn
upon after dinner, as if from a perennial spring of preternatural
wealth.

I had even the impudence to set up for a poet, and made my
broken-winded muse trot to the praises of the prince.  I allow
candidly that the verses were execrable; but then they were quite
good enough for their readers; and it remains a doubt whether, if
they had been better, the grand duke would not have thrown them into
the fire.  They seemed to be just what he would have written upon
himself.  In short, it was impossible to miss the proper style on
such a subject.  But whatever might be my merit as a poet, the
prince, by little and little, took such a liking to my person, as
gave occasion of jealousy to his courtiers.  They tried to find out
who I was.  This, however, was beyond their compass.  All they could
learn was, that I had been a renegado.  This was whispered forthwith
in the prince's ear, in the hopes of hurting me.  Not that it
succeeded: on the contrary, the grand duke one day commanded me to
give him a faithful account of my adventures at Algiers.  I obeyed,
and the recital, without reserve on my part, contributed more than
any other of my stories to his entertainment.

Don Raphael, said he, after I had ended my narrative, I have a real
regard for you, and mean to give you a proof of it, which will place
my sincerity beyond a doubt.  Henceforth you are admitted into my
most private confidence, as the first fruits of which, you are to
know that one of my ministers has a wife, with whom I am in love.
She is the most enchanting creature at court, but at the same time
the most impregnable.  Shut up in her own household, exclusively
attached to a husband who idolizes her, she seems to be ignorant of
the combustion her charms have kindled in Florence.  You will easily
conceive the difficulty of such a conquest.  And yet this epitome of
loveliness, so deaf to all the whispers of common seduction, has
sometimes listened to my sighs.  I have found the means of speaking
to her without witnesses.  She is not unacquainted with my
sentiments.  I do not flatter myself with having warmed her into
love; she has given me no reason to form so sweet a conjecture.  Yet
I will not despair of pleasing her by my constancy, and by the
cautious conduct, even to mystery, which I take care to observe.

My passion for this lady, continued he, is known only to herself.
Instead of pursuing my game wantonly, and overleaping the rights of
my subjects, like a true sovereign, I conceal from all the world the
knowledge of my love.  This delicacy seems due to Mascarini, the
husband of my beloved mistress.  His zeal and attachment to me, his
services and honesty, oblige me to act in this business with the
closest secrecy and circumspection.  I will not plunge a dagger into
the bosom of this ill-starred husband, by declaring myself a suitor
to his wife.  Would he might forever be insensible, were it within
possibility, to the secret flame which devours me; for I am persuaded
that he would die of grief were he to know the circumstances I have
just now confided to you.  I therefore veil my pursuit in
impenetrable darkness, and have determined to make use of you for the
purpose of conveying to Lucretia the merit of the sacrifices my
delicacy imposes on my feelings.  Of these you shall be the
interpreter.  I doubt not but you will acquit yourself to a marvel of
your commission.  Contrive to be intimate with Mascarini; make a
point of worming yourself into his friendship.  Then an introduction
to his family will be easy; and you will secure to yourself the
liberty of conversing freely with his wife.  This is what I require
from you, and what I feel assured that you will execute with all the
dexterity and discretion necessary to so delicate an undertaking.

I promised the grand duke to do my utmost in furtherance of his good
opinion, and in aid of his success with the object of his desires.  I
kept my word without loss of time.  No pains were spared to get into
Mascarini's good graces; and the design was not difficult to
accomplish.  Delighted to find his friendship sought by a man
possessing the affections of the prince, he advanced half way to meet
my overtures.  His house was always open to me; my intercourse with
his lady was unrestrained; and I have no hesitation in affirming my
measures to have been taken so well, as to have precluded the
slightest suspicion of the embassy intrusted to my management.  It is
true, he had but a small share of the Italian jealousy, relying as he
did on the virtue of his Lucretia; so that he often shut himself up
in his closet, and left me alone with her.  I entered at once into
the pith and marrow of my subject.  The grand duke's passion was my
topic with the lady; and I told her that the motive of my visits was
only to plead for that prince.  She did not seem to be over head and
ears in love with him; and yet, methought, vanity forbade her to
frown decisively on his addresses.  She took a pleasure in listening
to his sighs, without sighing in concert.  A certain propriety of
heart she had; but then she was a woman, and it was obvious that her
rigor was giving way insensibly to the triumphant image of a
sovereign bound in the fetters of her resistless charms.  In short,
the prince had good reason to flatter himself that he might dispense
with the ill-breeding of a Tarquin, and yet bend Lucretia to a
compliance with his longings.  An incident, however, the most
unexpected in the annals of romance, blasted his flattering
prospects; in what manner you shall hear.

I am naturally free and easy with the women.  This constitutional
assurance, whether a blessing or a curse, was ripened into inveterate
habit among the Turks.  Lucretia was a pretty woman.  I forgot that I
was courting by proxy, and assumed the tone of a principal.  Nothing
could exceed the warmth and gallantry with which I offered my
services to the lady.  Far from appearing offended at my boldness, or
silencing me by a resentful answer, she only said, with a sarcastic
smile, Own the truth, Don Raphael; the grand duke has pitched upon a
very faithful and zealous agent.  You serve him with an integrity not
sufficiently to be commended.  Madam, said I in the same strain, let
us not examine things with too much nicety.  A truce, I beseech you,
with moral discussions; they are not of my element: good honest
passion tallies better with our natures.  I do not believe myself,
after all, the first prince's confidant who has ousted his master in
an affair of gallantry; your great lords have often dangerous rivals
in more humble messengers than myself.  That may be, replied
Lucretia: but a haughty temper stands with me in the place of virtue,
and no one under the degree of a prince shall ever sully these
charms.  Regulate your behavior accordingly, added she in a tone of
serious severity, and let us change the subject.  I willingly bury
your presumption in oblivion, provided you never hold similar
discourse to me again: if you do, you may repent of it.

Though this was a comment of some importance on my text, and ought to
have been needfully conned over, it was no bar to my still
entertaining Mascarini's wife with my passion.  I even pressed her,
with more importunity than heretofore, for a kind consent to my
tender entreaties; and was rash enough to feel my ground, by some
little personal freedoms.  The lady then, offended at my words, and
still more at my Mahometan quips and cranks, gave a complete set down
to my assurance.  She threatened to acquaint the grand duke with my
impertinence; and declared she would make a point of his punishing me
as I deserved.  These menaces bristled up my spirit in return.  My
love turned at once into hatred, and determined me to revenge myself
for the contempt with which Lucretia had treated me.  I went in quest
of her husband; and after having bound him by oath not to betray me,
I informed him of his wife's correspondence with the prince, and
failed not to represent her as distractedly enamoured of him, by way
of heightening the interest of the scene.  The minister, lest the
plot should become too intricately entangled, shut his wife up,
without any law but his own will, in a secret apartment, where he
placed her under the strict guard of confidential persons.  While she
was thus kept at bay by the watch-dogs of jealousy, who prevented her
from acquainting the grand duke with her situation, I announced to
that prince, with a melancholy air, that he must think no longer of
Lucretia.  I told him that Mascarini had doubtless discovered all,
since he had taken it into his head to keep a guard over his wife;
that I could not conceive what had induced him to suspect me, as I
flattered myself with having always behaved according to the most
approved rules of discretion in such cases.  The lady might, I
suggested, have been beforehand, and owned all to her husband; and
had, perhaps, in concert with him, suffered herself to be immured, in
order to lie hid from a pursuit so dangerous to her virtue.  The
prince appeared deeply afflicted at my relation.  I was not unmoved
by his distress, and repented more than once of what I had done; but
it was too late to retract.  Besides, I must acknowledge, a spiteful
joy tingled in my veins, when I meditated on the distressed condition
of the disdainful fair who had spurned my vows.

I was feeding with impunity on the pleasure of revenge, so palatable
to all the world, but most of all to Spaniards, when one day the
grand duke, chatting with five or six nobles of his court and myself,
said to us, In what manner would you judge it fitting for a man to be
punished, who should have abused the confidence of his prince, and
designed to step in between him and his mistress?  The best way, said
one of the courtiers, would be to have him torn to pieces by four
horses.  Another gave it as his verdict that he should be soundly
beaten till he died under the blows of the executioner.  The most
tender-hearted and merciful of these Italians, with comparative
lenity towards the culprit, wished only just to admonish him of his
fault, by throwing him from the top of a tower to the bottom.  And
Don Raphael, resumed the grand duke after a pause, what is his
opinion?  The Spaniards, in all likelihood, would improve upon our
Italian severity, in a case of such aggravated treachery.

I fully understood, as you may well suppose, that Mascarini had not
kept his oath, or that his wife had devised the means of acquainting
the prince with what had passed between her and me.  My countenance
sufficiently betokened my inward agitation.  But for all that,
suppressing as well as I could my rising emotion and alarm, I replied
to the grand duke in a steady tone of voice, My lord, the Spaniards
are more generous; under such circumstances, they would pardon the
unworthy betrayer of his trust, and by that act of unmerited goodness
would kindle in his soul an everlasting abhorrence of his own
villany.  Yes, truly, said the prince, and I feel in my own breast a
similar spirit of forbearance.  Let the traitor then be pardoned;
since I have myself only to blame for having given my confidence to a
man of whom I had no knowledge, but, on the contrary, much ground of
suspicion, according to the current of common report.  Don Raphael,
added he, my revenge shall be confined to this single interdict.
Quit my dominions immediately, and never appear again in my presence.
I withdrew in all haste, less hurt at my disgrace, than delighted to
have got off so cheaply.  The very next day I embarked in a Barcelona
ship, just setting sail from the port of Leghorn on its return.

At this period of his history I interrupted Don Raphael to the
following effect: For a man of shrewdness, methinks you were not a
little off your guard, in trusting yourself at Florence for even so
short a time, after having discovered the prince's love of Lucretia
to Mascarini.  You might well have foreboded that the grand duke
would not be long in getting to the knowledge of your duplicity.
Your observation is very just, answered the well-matched son of so
eccentric a mother as Lucinda; and for that reason, not trusting to
the minister's promise of screening me from his master's indignation,
it had been my intention to disappear without taking leave.

I got safe to Barcelona, continued he, with the remnant of the wealth
I had brought from Algiers; but the greater part had been squandered
at Florence in enacting the Spanish gentleman.  I did not stay long
in Catalonia.  Madrid was the dear place of my nativity, and I had a
longing desire to see it again, which I satisfied as soon as
possible; for mine was not a temper to stand parleying with its own
inclinations.  On my arrival in town, I chanced to take up my abode
in a ready-furnished lodging, where dwelt a lady, by name Camilla.
Though at some distance from her teens, she was a very
spirit-stirring creature, as Signor Gil Blas will bear me out in
saying; for he fell in with her at Valladolid nearly about the same
time.  Her parts were still more extraordinary than her beauty; and
never had a lady with a character to let a happier talent of
inveigling fools to their ruin.  But she was not like those selfish
jilts who put out the gullibility of their lovers to usury.  The
pillage of the plodding merchant, or the grave family man, was
squandered upon the first gambler or prize-fighter who happened to
find his way into her frolicsome fancy.

We loved one another from the first moment, and the conformity of our
tempers bound us so closely together, that we soon lived on the
footing of joint property.  The amount, in sober sadness, was little
better than a cipher, and a few good dinners more reduced it to that
ignoble negative of number.  We were each of us thinking, as the
deuce would have it, of our mutual pleasures, without profiting in
the least by those happy dispositions of ours for living at the
expense of other folks.  Want at last gave a keener edge to our wits,
which indulgence had blunted.  My dear Raphael, said Camilla, let us
carry the war into the enemy's quarters, if you love me; for while we
are as faithful as turtles, we are as foolish, and fall into our own
snare, instead of laying it for the unwary.  You may get into the
head and heart of a rich widow; I may conjure myself into the good
graces of some old nobleman: but as for this ridiculous fidelity, it
brings no grist to the mill.  Excellent Camilla, answered I, you are
beforehand with me.  I was going to make the very same proposal.  It
exactly meets my ideas, thou paragon of morality.  Yes; the better to
maintain our mutual fire, let us forage for substantial fuel.  As
good may always be extracted out of evil, those infidelities which
are the bane of other loves shall be the triumph of ours.

On the basis of this treaty we took the field.  At first there was
much cry, but little wool; for we had no luck at finding cullies.
Camilla met with nothing but pretty fellows, with vanity in their
hearts, tinsel on their backs, and not a maravedi in their pockets;
my ladies were all of a kidney to levy rather than to pay
contributions.  As love left us in the lurch, we paid our devotions
at the shrine of knavery.  With the zeal of martyrs to a new religion
did we encounter the frowns of the civil power, whose myrmidons, as
like the devil in their nature as their office, were ordered on the
lookout after us; but the alguazil, with all the good qualities of
which the corregidor inherited the contraries, gave us time to make
our escape out of Madrid, for the good of the trade and a small sum
of money.  We took the road to Valladolid, meaning to set up in that
town.  I rented a house for myself and Camilla, who passed for my
sister to avoid evil tongues.  At first we kept a tight rein over our
speculative talents, and began by reconnoitring the ground before we
determined on our plan of operations.

One day a man accosted me in the street, with a very civil
salutation, to this effect: Signor Don Raphael, do you recollect my
face?  I answered in the negative.  Then I have the advantage of you,
replied he, for yours is perfectly familiar to me.  I have seen you
at the court of Tuscany, where I was then in the grand duke's guards.
It is some months since I quitted that prince's service.  I came into
Spain with an Italian, who will not discredit the politics of his
country: we have been at Valladolid these three weeks.  Our residence
is with a Castilian and a Galician, who are, without dispute, two of
the best creatures in the world.  We live together by the sweat of
our brows and the labor of our hands.  Our fare is not abstemious,
nor have we made any vow against the temptations of a life about the
court.  If you will make one of our party, my brethren will be glad
of your company; for you always seemed to me a man of spirit, above
all vulgar prejudices, in short, a monk of our order.

Such frankness from this arch scoundrel was met half way by mine.
Since you talk to me with so winning a candor, said I, you deserve
that I should be equally explicit with you.  In good truth I am no
novice in your ritual; and if my modesty would allow me to be the
hero of my own tale, you would be convinced that your compliments
were not lavished on an unworthy subject.  But enough of my own
commendations; proceed we to the point in question.  With all
possible desire to become a member of your body, I shall neglect no
opportunity of proving my title to that distinction.  I had no sooner
told this sharper at all points, that I would agree to swell the
number of his gang, than he conducted me to their place of meeting,
and introduced me in proper form.  It was on this occasion that I
first saw the renowned Ambrose de Lamela.  These gentlemen catechised
me in the religion of coveting my neighbor's goods, and doing as I
would not be done by.  They wanted to discern whether I played the
villain on principle, or had only some little practical dexterity;
but I showed them tricks which they did not know to be on the cards,
and yet acknowledged to be better than their own.  They were still
deeper lost in admiration, when, in cool disdain of manual artifice,
as an every-day effort of ingenuity, I maintained my prowess in such
combinations of roguery as require an inventive brain and a solid
judgment to support them.  In proof of these pretensions, I related
the adventure of Jerome de Moyadas; and on this single specimen of my
parts, they conceived my genius of so high an order, as to elect me
by common consent for their leader.  Their choice was fully justified
by a host of slippery devices, of which I was the master-wheel, the
cornerstone, or according to whatever other metaphor in mechanics you
may best express the soul of a conspiracy.  When we had occasion for
a female performer to heighten the interest, Camilla was sent upon
the stage, and played up to admiration in the parts she had to
perform.

Just at that period, our friend and brother Ambrose was seized with a
longing to see his native country once more.  He went for Galicia,
with an assurance that we might reckon on his return.  The visit
cured his patriotic sickness.  As he was on the road back, having
halted at Burgos to strike some stroke of business, an innkeeper of
his acquaintance introduced him into the service of Signor Gil Blas
de Santillane, not forgetting to instruct him thoroughly in the state
of that gentleman's affairs.  Signor Gil Blas, pursued Don Raphael,
addressing his discourse to me, you know in what manner we eased you
of your movables in a ready-furnished lodging at Valladolid; and you
must doubtless have suspected Ambrose to have been the principal
contriver of that exploit, and not without reason.  On his coming
into town, he ran himself out of breath to find us, and laid open
every particular of your situation, so that the associated swindlers
had nothing to do but to build on his foundation.  But you are
unacquainted with the consequences of that adventure; you shall
therefore have them on my authority.  Your portmanteau was made free
with by Ambrose and myself.  We also took the liberty of riding your
mules in the direction of Madrid, not dropping the least hint to
Camilla nor to our partners in iniquity, who must have partaken in
some measure of your feelings in the morning, at finding their glory
shorn of two such beams.

On the second day we changed our purpose.  Instead of going to
Madrid, whence I had not sallied forth without an urgent motive, we
passed by Zebreros, and continued our journey as far as Toledo.  Our
first care, in that town, was to dress ourselves in the genteelest
style; then, assuming the character of two brothers from Galicia on
our travels of mere curiosity, we soon got acquainted in the most
respectable circles.  I was so much in the habit of acting the man of
fashion, as not easily to be detected; and as the generality of
people are blinded by a free expenditure, we threw dust into the eyes
of all the world, by the elegant entertainments to which we invited
the ladies.  Among the women who frequented our parties, there was
one not indifferent to me.  She appeared more beautiful than Camilla,
and certainly much younger.  I inquired who she was; and learned that
her name was Violante, and that she was married to an ungrateful
spark, who soon grew weary of her chaste caresses, and was running
after those of a prostitute, with whom he was in love.  There was no
need to say any more to determine me on enthroning Violante the
sovereign lady and mistress of my thoughts and affections.

She was not long in coming to the knowledge of her conquest.  I began
by following her about from place to place, and playing a hundred
monkey tricks to instil into her comprehension that nothing would
please me better than the office of making her amends for the ill
usage of her husband.  The pretty creature ruminated on my proffered
kindness, and to such purpose as to let me know in the end that my
labor was not wasted on an ungrateful soil.  I received a note from
her in answer to several I had transmitted by one of those convenient
old dowagers in such high request throughout Spain and Italy.  The
lady sent me word that her husband supped with his mistress every
evening, and did not return home till very late.  It was impossible
to mistake the meaning of this.  On that very night I planted myself
under Violante's windows, and engaged her in a most tender
conversation.  At the moment of parting, it was settled between us
that every evening, at the same hour, we should meet and converse on
the same everlasting topic, without gainsaying any such other acts of
gallantry as might safely be submitted to the peering eye of day.

Hitherto Don Balthazar, as Violante's husband was called, had no
reason to complain of his forehead; but I was a natural philosopher,
and little satisfied with metaphysical endearments.  One evening,
therefore, I repaired under my lady's windows, with the design of
telling her that there was an end of life and everything if we could
not come together on more accommodating terms than from the balcony
to the street; for I had never yet been able to get into the house.
Just as I got thither, a man came within sight, apparently with the
view of dogging me.  In fact, it was the husband returning earlier
than usual from his precious bit of amusement; but observing a male
nuisance near his nunnery, instead of coming straight home, he walked
backwards and forwards in the street.  It was almost a moot point
with me what I ought to do.  At last, I resolved on accosting Don
Balthazar, though neither of us had the slightest knowledge of each
other.  Noble gentleman, said I, you would do me a most particular
favor by leaving the street vacant to me for this one night; I would
do as much for you another time.  Sir, answered he, I was just going
to make the same request to you.  I am on the lookout after a girl,
over whom a confounded fellow of a brother keeps watch and ward like
a jailer; and she lives not twenty yards from this place.  I could
wish to carry on my project without a witness.  We have the means,
replied I, of attaining both our ends without clashing; for the lady
of my desires lives there, added I, pointing to his own house.  We
had better even help one another, in case of being attacked.  With
all my heart, resumed he; I will go to my appointment, and we will
make common cause, if need be.  Under this pretence he went away, but
only to observe me the more narrowly; and the darkness of the night
favored his doing so without detection.

As for me, I made up to Violante's balcony in the simplicity of my
heart.  She soon heard my signal, and we began our usual parley.  I
was not remiss in pressing the idol of my worship to grant me a
private interview in some safe and practicable place.  She was rather
coy to my entreaties, as favors hardly earned are the higher valued:
at length she took a letter out of her pocket, and flung it down to
me.  There, said she, you will find in that scrap of paper the
promise of what you have teased me so long about.  She then withdrew,
as the hour approached when her husband usually came home.  I put the
note up carefully, and went towards the place where Don Balthazar had
told me that his business lay.  But that stanch husband, with the
sagacity of an old sportsman where his own wife was the game, came
more than halfway to meet me, with this question: Well, good sir, are
you satisfied with your happy fortunes?  I have reason to be so,
answered I.  And as for yourself, what have you done?  Has the blind
god befriended you?  Alas! quite the contrary, replied he; that
impertinent brother, who takes such liberties with my beauty, thought
fit to come back from his country house, whence we hugged ourselves
as sure that he would not return till to-morrow.  This infernal
chance has put all my soft and soothing pleasures out of tune.

Nothing could exceed the mutual pledges of lasting friendship, which
were exchanged between Don Balthazar and me.  To draw the cords the
closer, we made an appointment for the next morning in the great
square.  This plotting gentleman, after we had parted, betook himself
to his own house, without giving Violante at all to understand that
he knew more about her than she wished him.  On the following day he
was punctual in the great square, and I was not five minutes after
him.  We exchanged greetings with all the warmth of old friendship;
but it was a vapor to mislead on his part, though a spark of heavenly
flame on mine.  In the course of conversation, this hypocritical Don
Balthazar palmed upon me a fictitious confidence, respecting his
intrigue with the lady about whom he had been speaking the night
before.  He put together a long story he had been manufacturing on
that subject, and all this to hook me in to tell him, in return, by
what means I had got acquainted with Violante.  The snare was too
subtle for me to escape; I owned all with the innocence of a new-born
babe.  I did not even stick at showing the note I had received from
her, and read the contents, to the following purport: "I am going
to-morrow to dine with Donna Inez.  You know where she lives.  It is
in the house of that confidential friend that I mean to pass some
happy moments along with you.  It is impossible longer to refuse a
boon your patience has so well merited."

Here indeed, said Don Balthazar, is an epistle which promises to
crown all your wishes at once.  I congratulate you beforehand on your
approaching happiness.  He could not help fidgeting and wriggling a
little while he talked in these terms of his own household; but all
his hitches and wry faces passed off, and my eyes were as fast sealed
as ever.  I was so full of anticipating titillations, as not to think
of noticing my new friend, who was obliged to get off as fast as he
could, for fear of betraying his agitation in my presence.  He ran to
acquaint his brother-in-law with this strange occurrence.  I know not
what might pass between them: it is only certain that Don Balthazar
happened to knock at Donna Inez's door just when I was at that lady's
house with Violante.  We were warned who it was, and I escaped by a
back door exactly as he went in at the front.  As soon as I had got
safe off, the women, whom the unexpected visit of this troublesome
husband had disconcerted a little, recovered their presence of mind,
and with it so large a stock of assurance, as to stand the brunt of
his attack, and put him to a nonplus in ascertaining whether they had
hid me or smuggled me out.  I cannot exactly tell you what he said to
Donna Inez and his wife; nor do I believe that history will ever
furnish any authentic particulars of the squabble.

In the mean time, without suspecting yet how completely I was gulled
by Don Balthazar, I sallied forth with curses in my mouth, and
returned to the great square, where I had appointed Lamela to meet
me.  But no Lamela was there.  He also had his little snug parties,
and the scoundrel fared better than his comrade.  As I was waiting
for him, I caught a glimpse of my treacherous associate, with a
knowing smile upon his countenance.  He made up to me, and inquired,
with a hearty laugh, what news of my assignation with my nymph, under
the convenient roof of Donna Inez.  I cannot conceive, said I, what
evil spirit, jealous of my joys, takes delight to nip them in their
blossom: but after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it
were, spoke the prologue of our comedy, comes the peaking cornuto of
a husband (the Furies fly away with him), and knocks at the door in
the instant of our encounter.  There was nothing to be done but to
secure my retreat as fast as possible.  So I got out at a back door,
sending to all the inhabitants of hell and its suburbs the jealous
knave, who was so uncivil as to search another lady's house for his
own horns.  I am sorry you sped so ill-favoredly, exclaimed Don
Balthazar, who was chuckling with inward satisfaction at my
disappointment.  What a mechanical rogue of a husband!  I would
advise you to show no mercy to the wittol.  O, you need not teach me
how to predominate over such a peasant, replied I.  Take my word for
it, a new quarter shall be added to his coat of arms this very night.
His wife, when I went away, told me not to be faint-hearted for such
a trifle, but to place myself without fail under her windows at an
earlier hour than usual, for she was resolved to let me into the
house; and, as a precaution against all accidents, she begged me to
bring two or three friends in my train, for fear of a surprise.  What
a discreet and inventive lady! said he, I should have no objection to
being of your party.  Ah! my dear friend, exclaimed I, out of wits
with joy, and throwing my arms about Don Balthazar's neck, how
infinitely you will oblige me!  I will do more, resumed he; I know a
young man, armed like another Cæsar, for either field of love or war;
he shall be of our number, and you may then rely boldly on the
sufficiency of your escort.

I knew not in what words to thank this seeming friend, so that my
gratitude might be equivalent to his zeal.  To make short of the
matter, I accepted his proffered aid.  Our meeting was fixed under
Violante's balcony early in the evening, and we parted.  He went in
quest of his brother-in-law, who was the hero in question.  As for
me, I walked about all day with Lamela, who had no more misgivings
than myself, though somewhat astonished at the warmth with which Don
Balthazar engaged in my interests.  We slipped our own necks
completely into the noose.  I own this was mere infatuation on our
parts, whose natural instinct ought to have warned us of a halter.
When I thought it proper time to present myself under Violante's
windows, Ambrose and I took care to be armed with small swords.
There we found the husband of my fair dame and another man, waiting
for us with a very determined air.  Don Balthazar accosted me, and
introducing his brother-in-law, said, Sir, this is the brave officer
whose prowess I have extolled so highly to you.  Make the best of
your way into your mistress's house, and let no fear of the
consequences be any bar to the enjoyment of the most rapturous human
bliss.

After a mutual interchange of compliments, I knocked at Violante's
door.  It was opened by a kind of duenna.  In I went, and without
looking back after what was passing behind me, made the best of my
way to the lady's room.  While I was paying her my preliminary
civilities, the two cutthroats who had followed me into the house,
and had banged the door after them so violently, that Ambrose was
left in the street, made their appearance.  You may well suppose that
then was the appeal to arms.  They both fell upon me at the same
time; but I showed them some play.  I kept them engaged on either
side so fiercely, that they were sorry, perhaps, not to have taken a
safer road to their revenge.  The husband was run through the body.
His brother-in-law, seeing him on his travels to the shades below,
made the best of his way to the door, which the duenna and Violante
had opened, to make their escape while we were fighting.  I ran after
him into the street, where I met with Lamela once more, who, by dint
of not being able to get a word out of the women, running as they did
for their very lives, did not know exactly what he was to divine from
the infernal noise he had just heard.  We got back to our inn.  After
packing up what was best worth taking with us, we mounted our mules,
and got out of town, without waiting for daybreak or fear of robbers.

It was sufficiently clear that this business was not likely to be
without its consequences, and that a hue and cry would be set up in
Toledo, which we should act like wise men to anticipate by a retreat.
We staid the night at Villarubia.  At the inn where we put up, some
time after our arrival, there alighted a tradesman of Toledo on his
way to Segorba.  We clubbed our suppers.  He related to us the
tragical catastrophe of Violante's husband; and so far was he from
suspecting us of being parties concerned, that we inquired into
particulars with the curious indifference of common newsmongers.
Gentlemen, said he, just as I was setting out this morning, the
report of this melancholy event was handed about.  Every one was on
the hunt after Violante; and they say that the corregidor, a relation
of Don Balthazar, is determined on sparing no pains to discover the
perpetrators of this murder.  So much for my knowledge of the
business.

The corregidor of Toledo and his police gave me very little
uneasiness.  But, for fear of the worst, I determined to precipitate
my retreat from New Castile.  It occurred to me that Violante, when
hunted out of her hiding-place, would turn informer, and in that case
she might give such a description of my person to the clerks in
office, as might enable them to put their scouts upon a right scent.
For this reason, on the following day we struck out of the high road,
as a measure of safety.  Fortunately Lamela was acquainted with three
fourths of Spain, and knew by what cross paths we could get securely
into Arragon.  Instead of going straight to Cuença, we threaded the
defiles of the mountains overhanging that town, and arrived, by ways
with which my guide was well acquainted, at a grotto looking very
much like a hermitage.  In fact, it was the very place whither you
came yesterday evening to petition me for an asylum.

While I was reconnoitring the neighborhood, which presented a most
delicious landscape to my view, my companion said to me, It is six
years since I travelled this way.  At that time the grotto before us
afforded a retreat to an old hermit who entertained me charitably.
He made me fare as he did.  I remember that he was a holy man, and
talked in such a strain as almost to wean me from the vices and
follies of this nether world.  He may possibly be still living; I
will ascertain whether it be so or not.  With these words in his
mouth, Ambrose, under the influence of natural curiosity, alighted
from his mule, and went into the hermitage.  He remained there some
minutes, and then returned, calling after me, and saying, Come
hither, Don Raphael; come and bear witness to a most affecting event.
I dismounted immediately.  We tied our mules to a tree, and I
followed Lamela into the grotto, where I descried an old anchoret
stretched at his length upon a couch, pale and at the point of death.
A white beard, very thick, hung down to his middle, and he held a
large rosary, most piously ornamented, in his clasped hands.  At the
noise which we made in coming near him, he opened his eyes, upon
which death had already begun to lay his leaden hand, and after
having looked at us for a moment, said, "Whosoever you are, my
brethren, profit by the spectacle which presents itself to your
observation.  I have seen out forty years in the world, and sixty in
this solitude.  But mark!  At this eternal crisis, the time I have
devoted to my pleasures seems an age, and that, on the contrary,
which has been sacred to repentance, but a minute!  Alas!  I fear
lest the austerities of brother Juan should be found light in the
balance with the sins of the licentiate Don Juan de Solis."

No sooner were these words out of his mouth than he breathed his
last.  We were struck by the solemn scene.  Objects of this kind
always make some impression even on the greatest libertines; but our
serious thoughts were of no long duration.  We soon forgot what he
had been saying to us, and began making an inventory of what the
hermitage contained; an employment which was not oppressively
laborious, since the household furniture extended no further than
what you remarked in the grotto.  Brother Juan was not only in
ill-furnished lodgings; his kitchen, too, was in a very rustic
plight.  All the store laid in consisted of some small nuts and some
pieces of crusty barley bread as hard as flint, which had all the
appearance of having been impregnable to the gums of the venerable
man.  I specify his gums, because we looked for his teeth, and found
they had all dropped out.  The whole arrangement of this solitary
abode, every object that met our eyes, made us look upon this good
anchoret as a pattern of sanctity.  One thing only staggered us in
our opinion.  We opened a paper folded in the form of a letter, and
lying upon the table, wherein he besought the person who should read
the contents to carry his rosary and sandals to the bishop of Cuença.
We could not make out in what spirit this modern recluse of the
desert could aim at making such a present to his bishop.  It seemed
to us to tread somewhat on the heels of his humility, and to savor of
one who was a candidate for a niche in the calendar.  Though indeed
it might be that there was nothing in it but a simple supposition
that the bishop was such another as himself; but whether his
ignorance was really so extreme, I shall not pretend to decide.

In talking over this subject, a very pleasant idea occurred to
Lamela.  Let us take up our abode, said he, in this holy retreat.
The disguise of hermits will become us.  Brother Juan must be laid
quietly in the earth.  You shall personate him; and for myself, in
the character of brother Anthony, I will go and see what is to be
done in the neighboring towns and villages.  Besides that we shall be
too cunningly ensconced for the prying curiosity of the corregidor,
since it is not to be supposed that he will think of coming hither to
look for us, I have some good connections at Cuença, which may be of
essential service to us.  I fell in with this odd whim, not so much
for the reasons given me by Ambrose, as in compliance with the humor
of the thing, and as it were to play a part in a dramatic piece.  We
made an excavation in the ground at about thirty or forty yards from
the grotto, and buried the old anchoret there without any pompous
rites, after having stripped him of his wardrobe, which consisted of
a single crown tied round the middle with a leathern girdle.  We
likewise despoiled him of his beard to make me an artificial one; and
finally, after his interment, we took possession of the hermitage.

The first day our table was but meanly served; the provisions of the
deceased were all we had to feed on: but on the following morning,
before sunrise, Lamela set off to sell the two mules at Toralva, and
returned in the evening, laden with provisions and other articles
which he had purchased.  He brought every thing necessary to
metamorphose us completely.  For himself he had provided a gown of
coarse dark cloth, and a little red horse-hair, beard, so ingeniously
appended to his ears, that one would have sworn it had been natural.
There is not a cleverer fellow in the universe for a frolic.  Brother
Juan's beard was also new-modelled, and adapted to the plumpness of
my face.  My brown woollen cap completed the masquerade.  In fact,
nothing was wanting to make us pass for what we were not.  Our
equipage was so ludicrously out of character, that we could not look
at one another without laughing, under a garb so diametrically at
variance with our general complexion.  With brother Juan's mantle, I
caught and kept his rosary and sandals; taking the liberty of
borrowing them for the time being from the bishop of Cuença.

We had already been three days in the hermitage, without having been
interrupted by a living soul; but on the fourth, two countrymen came
into the grotto.  They brought bread, cheese, and onions, for the
deceased, whom they supposed to be still living.  I threw myself on
our miserable couch as soon as they made their appearance; and it was
not difficult to impose on them.  Besides that it was too dark to
distinguish my features accurately, I imitated the voice of brother
Juan, whose last words I had heard, to the best of my ability.  They
had no suspicion of the trick, though a good deal surprised at
finding another hermit there.  Lamela, taking advantage of their
stupid wonder, said, in a canting tone, My brethren, be not
astonished at seeing me in this solitude.  I have quitted a hermitage
of my own in Arragon, to come hither and be a companion to the
venerable and edifying brother Juan, who, at his advanced age, wants
a yoke-fellow to administer to his necessities.  The rustics lavished
their clumsy panegyrics on the charity of Ambrose, and congratulated
themselves that they might triumph over their neighbors, and boast of
two holy personages residing in their country.

Lamela, laden with a large wallet which he had not forgotten among
the number of his purchases, went for the first time to reconnoitre
the town of Cuença, which is but a very short distance from the
hermitage.  With a mortified exterior, by which nature had dubbed him
for a cheat, and the art of making that natural deception go as far
as possible by a most hypocritical and factitious array of features,
he could not fail to play upon the feelings of the charitable and
humane, and those whom heaven has blessed with affluence.  His
knapsack bore testimony to the extravagance of their pious
liberalities.  Master Ambrose, said I on his return, I congratulate
you on your happy knack at softening the souls of all good
Christians.  As we hope to be saved, one would suppose that you had
been a mendicant friar among the Capuchins.  I have done something
else besides bringing in food for the convent, answered he.  You must
know that I have ferreted out a certain lass called Barbara, with
whom I used to flirt formerly.  She is as much altered as any of us;
for she also has addicted herself to a godly life.  She forms a
coterie with two or three other sanctified dames, who are an example
to the faithful in public, and flounce over head and ears in every
sort of private vice.  She did not know me again at first.  What
then, Mistress Barbara, said I, is it possible that you should have
discharged one of your oldest friends from your remembrance, your
servant Ambrose?  As I am a true Christian, Signor de Lamela,
exclaimed she, I never thought to have turned you up in such a garb
as that.  By what transformation are you become a hermit?  That is
more than I can tell you just now, rejoined I.  The particulars are
rather long; but I will come to-morrow evening and satisfy your
curiosity.  Nay, more; I will bring brother Juan, my companion, along
with me.  Brother Juan, interrupted she, the venerable hermit who has
taken up his saintly residence near this town?  You do not know what
you are saying; he is supposed to be more than a hundred years old.
It is very true, said I, that he was of that age some little while
ago; but time, in deference to his sanctity, has gone backward with
him; and he is grown considerably younger within these few days.  He
is at present just about my turn of life.  Say you so!  Then let us
have him too, replied Barbara.  I perceive there is something more in
this mystery than the church will be able to explain.

We did not miss our appointment with these whited sepulchres on the
following night.  To make our reception the more agreeable, they had
laid out a sumptuous entertainment.  Off went our beards and cowls,
and vestments of mortification; and without any squeamishness we
confessed our birth, education, and real character, to these sisters
in hypocrisy.  On their part, for fear of being behindhand with us in
freedom from prejudice, they fairly let us see of what pretended
religionists are capable, when they drop the veil of the sanctuary,
and exhibit their unmanufactured faces.  We spent almost the whole
night at table, and got back to our grotto but a moment before
daybreak.  We were not long in repeating our visit; or, if the truth
must be told, it was nightly for three months; till we had ate up
more than two thirds of our ways and means in the company of these
delicate creatures.  But an unsuccessful candidate for their favor
got wind of our proceedings, and prated of our whereabout in the ear
of justice, which was to have been in motion towards the hermitage
this very day, to lay hold of our persons.  Yesterday Ambrose, while
picking up eleemosynaries at Cuença, stumbled upon one of our whining
sisterhood, who gave him a note, with this caution: A female friend
of mine has written me this letter, which I was going to send to you
by a man on purpose.  Show it to brother Juan, and regulate your
proceedings accordingly.  It was this very note, gentlemen, that
Lamela gave me in your presence, which occasioned us to take so
abrupt a leave of our solitary dwelling.




_CHAPTER II._

_DON RAPHAEL'S CONSULTATION WITH HIS COMPANY, AND THEIR ADVENTURES AS
THEY WERE PREPARING TO LEAVE THE WOOD._

When Don Raphael had finished the narrative of his adventurous life,
which, with all the other qualities of a romance, had the
tediousness, Don Alphonso, according to the laws of good breeding,
swore himself black in the face that he had been prodigiously
entertained.  After the usual exchange of compliments, Signor Ambrose
put in his oar, with an admonitory hint to the partner of his
exploits and peregrinations.  Consider, Don Raphael, that the sun is
setting.  It would not be amiss, me thinks, to take counsel on what
we are to do.  You are in the right, answered his comrade; we must
determine on the place of our destination.  For my own part, replied
Lamela, I am of opinion that we should get upon the road again
without loss of time, reach Requena to-night, and enter upon the
territory of Valencia to-morrow, where we will go to work full tilt
at our old trade.  I have some prognosticating twitches, which tell
me that we shall strike some good strokes in that quarter.  His
colleague, from ample experience of his infallibility in such
prophecies, voted on his side of the question.  As for Don Alphonso
and myself, having nothing to do but to follow the lead of these two
worthy gentlemen, we waited, in silent acquiescence, the issue of
this momentous debate.

Thus it was determined that we should take the direction of Requena;
and all hands were piped to make the necessary arrangements.  We made
our meal after the same fashion as in the morning, and the horse was
laden with the bottle, and with the remnant of our provisions.  After
a time, the approach of night seemed to promise us that darkness so
friendly, and even so necessary to the safety of our retreat; and we
were beginning our march through the wood: but before we had gone a
hundred paces, a light among the trees gave us a subject of anxious
speculation.  What can be the meaning of that? said Don Raphael;
these surely must be bloodhounds of the police from Cuença, uncoupled
and eager for the sport, with a fresh scent of us in this forest, and
in full cry after their game.  I am of a very different opinion, said
Ambrose; they are more likely to be benighted travellers taking
shelter in the thicket till daybreak.  But there is no trusting to
conjecture: I will examine into the real truth.  Stay you here, all
three of you; I will be back again instantly.  No sooner said than
done; he stole, just as if he had been used to it, towards the light,
which was not far off; no brute or human thief of forest or city
could have done it better.  With a gentle removal of the leaves and
branches which obstructed his passage, the whole scene was laid open
to his silent contemplation; and it afforded sufficient food.  On the
grass, round about a lighted candle with a clod for its candlestick,
were seated four men, just finishing a meat pie, and hugging a pretty
large bottle, which was at its last gasp, after having sustained
their alternate embraces for successive rounds.  At some paces from
these gentry, he espied a lady and gentleman tied to the trees, and,
a little farther off, a carriage with two mules richly caparisoned.
He determined at once in his own mind that the fellows carousing on
the ground were banditti; and the tenor of their talk assured him
that he had not belied their trade by his conjecture.  The four
cutthroats all avowed a like desire of possessing the female who had
fallen into their hands; and they were proposing to draw lots for
her.  Lamela, having made himself master of the business, came back
to us, and gave an exact account of all he had seen and heard.

[Illustration: Thieves in forest]

My friends, said Don Alphonso on his recital, that lady and
gentleman, whom the robbers have tied to trees, are probably persons
of the first condition.  Shall we suffer scoundrels like these to
triumph over their honor and take away their lives?  Put yourselves
under my direction: let us assail the desperate outlaws, and they
will perish under our attack.  With all my heart, said Don Raphael.
It is all one to me.  I had just as soon engage on the right side as
on the wrong.  Ambrose, for his part, protested that he wished for
nothing better than to lend a hand in so moral an enterprise, as it
promised to combine much profit with some share of honor.  And
indeed, if a man may speak a good word for himself, danger stood
better recommended than usual to my comprehension; all the boiling
courage of knighthood, pledged up to the knuckles or the chin on the
behalf of female innocence, was oozing out at every pore of this
chivalrous person.  But, if we are to state facts in the spirit of
history rather than of romance, the danger was more in imagination
than in reality.  Lamela having brought us word that the arms of the
robbers were all piled up at the distance of ten or twelve paces out
of their reach, there was no difficulty in securing the mastery of
the field.  We tied our horses to a tree, and drew near, as softly as
possible, to the spot were the robbers were seated.  They were
debating with some impetuosity, and their vociferous argument was all
in favor of our covert attack.  We got possession of their arms
before they had any suspicion of us.  But the enemy was nearer than
they imagined--too near to miss aim; and they were all stretched
lifeless on the ground.

During the conflict the candle went out, so that we proceeded in our
business by guess-work.  We were not remiss, however, in unbinding
the prisoners, of whom fear had got such complete possession, that
they had not their wits enough about them to thank us for what we had
done for them.  It must be allowed that they could not at first
distinguish whether they were to consider us as their deliverers, or
as a fresh gang who had taken them out of one furnace to cast them
hissing into another.  But we recovered their spirits by the
assurance that we should lodge them safely in a public house which
Ambrose mentioned as not being more than half a mile off, whence they
might take all necessary measures to pursue their journey in whatever
direction they thought proper.  After these words of comfort, which
seemed to sink deep, we placed them in their carriage, and conducted
them out of the wood, holding their mules by the bridle.  Our
clerical friends instituted a ghostly visitation to the pockets of
the vanquished banditti.  Our next step was to recover Don Alphonso's
horse.  We also took to ourselves the steeds of the robbers, waiting,
as they were, to be released from the trees to which they were tied
near the field of battle.  With this extensive cavalcade we followed
brother Antony, mounted on one of the mules, and conducting the
carriage to the inn, whither we did not arrive in less than two
hours, though he had pledged his credit that the distance from the
wood was very short.

We knocked roughly at the door.  Every living creature was napping,
except the fleas.  The landlord and landlady got on their clothes in
a hurry, and were not at all annoyed at finding their rest disturbed
by the arrival of an equipage which promised to do more for the good
of the house than it eventually did.  The whole inn was lighted up in
an instant.  Don Alphonso and the stage-bred son of Lucinda lent
their assistance to the gentleman and lady in alighting from the
carriage, and acted as their ushers in leading the way to the room
prepared for them by the landlord.  Compliments flew backwards and
forwards like shuttlecocks; but we were not a little astonished at
discovering the Count de Polan himself and his daughter Seraphina in
the persons we had just rescued.  It would be difficult to represent
by words the surprise of that lady, as well as of Don Alphonso, when
they recognized each other's features.  The count took no notice of
it, his attention being engrossed by other matters.  He set about
relating to us in what manner the robbers had attacked him, and how
they secured his daughter and himself, after having killed his
postilion, a page, and a valet-de-chambre.  He ended with declaring
how deeply he felt his obligation, and that, if we would call upon
him at Toledo, where he should be in a month, we should judge for
ourselves whether he felt as a grateful heart ought to feel.

His lordship's daughter was not backward in her acknowledgments for
her timely rescue; and as we were of opinion--that is, Raphael and
myself--that we should do a good turn to Don Alphonso by giving him
an opportunity of a minute's private parley with the young widow, we
contrived to keep the Count de Polan in play.  Lovely Seraphina, said
Don Alphonso to the lady in a low voice, I no longer lament over the
lot which obliges me to live like a man banished from civil society,
since I have been so fortunate as to assist in the important service
just rendered you.  What then, answered she, with a sigh, is it you
who have saved my life and honor?  Is it to you that we are so
indebted, myself equally with my father?  Ah!  Don Alphonso, why were
you the instrument of my brother's death?  She said no more upon the
subject; but he conceived clearly by these words, and by the tone in
which they were pronounced, that if he was over head and ears in love
with Seraphina, she was equally out of her depth in the same passion.




BOOK THE SIXTH.



_CHAPTER I._

_THE FATE OF GIL BLAS AND HIS COMPANIONS AFTER THEY TOOK LEAVE OF THE
COUNT DE POLAN.  ONE OF AMBROSE'S NOTABLE CONTRIVANCES SET OFF BY THE
MANNER OF ITS EXECUTION._

The Count de Polan, after having exhausted half the night in thanking
us, and protesting that we might reckon upon his substantial
acknowledgments, sent for the landlord, to consult him on the best
method of getting safely to Turis, whither it was his intention to
go.  We had nothing to do with this nobleman's further progress, and
therefore left him to take his own measures.  Our departure from the
inn was now resolved on; and we followed Lamela like sheep after the
bell-wether.

After two hours' travelling, the day overtook us near Campillo.  We
made as expeditiously as possible for the mountains between that
hamlet and Requena.  There we wore out the day in taking our rest and
reckoning up our stock, which the spoil of the robbers had
considerably replenished, to the amount of more than three hundred
pistoles, the lawful ravage of their pockets.  We began our march
again with the setting in of the night, and on the following morning
reached the frontier of Valencia in safety.  We got quietly into the
first wood that offered as a shelter.  The inmost recesses of it were
best suited to our purpose, and led us on by winding paths to a spot
where a rivulet of transparent water was meandering in its slow and
silent course, to incorporate with the waters of Guadalaviar.  The
refreshing shade afforded by the foliage, and the rich pasturage in
which our toil-worn beasts so much delighted, would have fixed this
for the place of our halting, if our resolution had not been
previously taken to that effect.

We therefore alighted, and were preparing to pass the day very
pleasantly; but a good breakfast was amongst the foremost of our
intended pleasures, and we found that there was very little
ammunition left.  Bread was beginning to be a nonentity; and our
bottle was becoming an evidence of the material system, mere carnal
leather without a vivifying soul.  Gentlemen, said Ambrose, scenery
and the picturesque have but hungry charms for me, unless Bacchus and
Ceres preside over the landscape.  Our provisions must be lengthened
out.  For this purpose, away post I to Xelva.  It is a very pretty
town, not more than two leagues off.  I shall soon make this little
excursion.  Speaking after this manner he slung the bottle and the
wallet over a horse's back, leaped merrily into his seat, and shot
out of the wood with a rapidity which seemed to bid fair for a speedy
return.

He did not, however, come back quite so soon as he had given us
reason to expect.  More than half the day had elapsed; nay, night
herself was already pranking up her dun and gloomy wings, to
overshadow the thicket with a denser horror, when we saw our purveyor
once again, whose long stay was beginning to give us some uneasiness.
Our extreme wishes were lame and impotent, compared with the
abundance of his stores.  He not only produced the bottle, filled
with some excellent wine, and the wallet stuffed with game and
poultry ready dressed, to say nothing of bread,--the horse was laden
besides with a large bundle of stuffs, of which we could make neither
head nor tail.  He took notice of our wonder, and said with a smile,
I will lay a wager neither Don Raphael nor all the colleges of
soothsayers upon earth can guess why I have bought these articles.
With this fling at our dulness, we untied the bundle, and lectured on
the intrinsic value of what we had been considering only as an empty
pageant.  In the inventory was a cloak and a black gown of trailing
dimensions; doublets, breeches, and hose to correspond; an inkstand
and writing paper such as a secretary of state need not be ashamed
of; a key such as a treasurer might carry; a great seal and green wax
such as a chancellor might affix to his decrees.  When he had at
length exhausted the display of his bargains, Don Raphael observed,
in a bantering tone, Faith and troth, Master Ambrose, it must be
confessed that you have made a good, sensible speculation.  But pray,
how do you mean to turn the penny on your purchase?  Let me alone for
that, answered Lamela.  All these things cost me only ten pistoles,
and it shall go hard but they bring us in above five hundred.  The
tens in five hundred are fifty; a good improvement of money, my
masters!  I am not a man to burden myself with a trumpery pedler's
pack; and to prove to you that I have not been making ducks and
drakes of our joint stock, I will let you into the secret of a plan
which has just taken birth in my pericranium.

After having laid in my stock of bread, I went into a cook's shop,
where I ordered a range of partridges, chickens, and young rabbits,
half a dozen of each, to be put instantly on the spit.  While these
relishing little articles were roasting, in came a man in a violent
passion, open-mouthed against the coarse conduct of a tradesman to
his consequential self.  This fagot of fury observed to the lord
paramount of the dripping-pan, By St. James!  Samuel Simon is the
most wrong-headed retail dealer in the town of Xelva.  He has just
insulted me in his own shop before his customers.  The skinflint
would not trust me for six ells of cloth, though he knows very well
that my credit is as good as the bank, and that no one could say he
ever lost anything by me.  Are not you delighted with the outlandish
monster?  He has no objection to getting people of fashion on his
books.  He had rather toss up heads or tails with them, than oblige a
plain citizen in an honest way, and be paid in full at the time
appointed.  What a strange whim!  But he is an infernal Jew.  He will
be taken in some day or other!  All the merchants on the Exchange are
lying in wait to catch him upon the hip; and his disgrace or ruin
will be nuts to me.

While this reptile of the warehouse was thus spitting his spite and
blurting out many other ill-natured innuendoes, there came over me a
sort of astrological anticipation that I should be lord of the
ascendant over this Samuel Simon.  My friend, said I to the man who
was complaining against that hawker of damaged goods, of what
character is the strange fellow you are talking about?  Of a
confoundedly bad character, answered he in a pet.  Depend on it, he
is one of the most extortionate usurers in existence, though with the
affectation of not letting his left hand know what his right gives
away in charity.  He was a Jew, and has turned Catholic; but rip your
way into his heart, if he has any, and you will find him still as
inveterate a Jew as ever Pilate was.  As for his conversion, it was
all in the way of trade.

I took in with greedy ear the whole invective of the shop-keeping
declaimant, and failed not, on coming out of the eating-house, to
inquire for Samuel Simon's residence.  A person directed me to the
part of the town, and there was no difficulty in finding out the
house.  It was not enough to skim my eye cursorily over his shop.  I
peered into every hole and corner of it; and my imagination, always
on the alert when any profit is to be picked up, has already
engendered a rogue's trick, which only waits the period of gestation,
when it may turn out a bantling not unworthy to be fathered by the
sanctimonious servant of Signor Gil Blas.  Straightway went I to the
ready-made warehouse, where I bought these dresses, into which we may
stuff an inquisitor, a notary, and an alguazil, and play the parts in
the spirit of the solemn offices they represent.

Ah! my dear Ambrose, interrupted Don Raphael, transported with
rapture at the suggestion, what a wonderful idea! a glorious scheme
indeed!  I am quite jealous of the contrivance.  Willingly would I
blot out the proudest quarter from my escutcheon, to have owned an
effort of genius so transcendent.  Yes, Lamela, I see, my friend, all
the rich invention of the design, and you need be at no loss for
instruments to carry it into effect.  You want two good actors to
play up to you; and you have not far to look for them.  You have
yourself a face that can look sanctified, magisterial, or
bloodthirsty at will, and may do very well to represent the
inquisition.  My character shall be that of the notary; and Signor
Gil Blas, if he pleases, may enact the alguazil.  Thus are the
persons of the drama distributed: to-morrow we will play the piece,
and I will pledge myself for its success, bating one of those unlucky
chance medleys which turn awry the currents of the most pithy and
momentous enterprises.

As yet Don Raphael's masterpiece of roguery had made but a clumsy
impression on my plodding brain; but the argument of the fable was
developed at supper-time, and the hinge upon which it was turned was,
to my mind, of an ingenious contrivance.  After having despatched
part of our game, and bled our bottle to the last stage of
evacuation, we stretched our length upon the grass, and soon fell
fast asleep.  Up with you! up with you! was the alarum of Signor
Ambrose, as the day began to dawn.  People who have a great
enterprise on hand ought not to indulge themselves in indolence.  A
plague upon you, master inquisitor, said Don Raphael, rubbing his
eyes; you are confounded early on the move!  It is as good as an
order for execution to Master Samuel Simon.  Many a true word is
spoken in jest, replied Lamela.  Nay, you shall know more, added he
with a sarcastic grin.  I dreamt last night that I was plucking the
hairs out of his beard.  Was not that a left-handed dream for him,
master secretary?  These pleasant hits were followed by a thousand
others, which called forth new bursts of merriment.  Our breakfast
passed off with the utmost gayety; and when it was over, we made our
arrangements for the pageant we had got up.  Ambrose arrayed himself
in sables, as befitted so ghostly an instrument for the suppression
of vice.  We also took to our official habits; nor has the dignity of
magistracy been often more gravely represented than by Don Raphael
and myself.  The making up of our persons was rather a tedious
operation; for it was later than two o'clock in the afternoon when we
sallied from the wood to attend our call at Xelva.  It is true, there
was no hurry, since the play was not to begin till the setting in of
the evening.  That being the case, we jogged on leisurely, and
stopped at the gates of the town till the day was closed.

At that eventful hour, we left our horses where they were, to the
care of Don Alphonso, who was very well satisfied to have so humble a
cast in the distribution.  As for Don Raphael, Ambrose, and myself,
our first visit was not to Samuel Simon in person, but to a
tavern-keeper who lived very near him.  His reverence the inquisitor
walked foremost.  In went he to the bar, and said gravely to the
landlord, Master, I want to speak a word with you in private.  The
obsequious publican showed us into a room, where Lamela, now that we
had got him to ourselves, said, I have the honor to be an unworthy
member of the holy office, and am come here on a business of very
great importance.  At this intimation, the man of liquor turned pale,
and answered in a tremulous tone that he was not conscious of having
given any umbrage to the holy inquisition.  True, replied Ambrose,
with encouraging affability; neither do we meditate any harm against
you.  Heaven forbid that august tribunal, too hasty in its
punishments, should make no distinction between guilt and innocence.
It is unrelenting, but always just: to become obnoxious to its
vengeance, you must have earned its displeasure by wickedness or
contumacy.  Be satisfied therefore that it is not you who bring me to
Xelva, but a certain dealer and chapman, by name Samuel Simon.  A
very ugly story about him has come round to us.  He is still a Jew in
his heart, they say, and has only embraced Christianity from sordid
and secular motives.  I command you, in the name of the tremendous
court I represent, to tell me all you know about that man.  Beware
how you are induced by good neighborhood, or possibly by close
friendship, to gloss over and palliate his errors; for I warn you
authoritatively, if I detect the slightest prevarication in your
evidence, you are yourself even as one of the abandoned and accursed.
Where is my secretary? pursued he, turning down towards Don Raphael.
Sit down and do your duty.

Mr. Secretary, with his paper already in his hand and his pen behind
his ear, took his seat most pompously, and made ready to take down
the landlord's deposition; who promised solemnly on his part not to
suppress one tittle of the real fact.  So far, so good! said the
worshipful commissioner; we have only to proceed in our examination.
You will only just answer my questions; but do not interlard your
replies with any comments of your own.  Do you often see Samuel Simon
at church!  I never thought of looking for him, said the drawer of
corks; but I do not know that I ever saw him there in my life.  Very
good! cried the inquisitor.  Write down that the defendant never goes
to church.  I do not say so, your worship, answered the landlord, I
only say that I never happened to see him there.  We may have been at
church together, and yet not have come across each other.  My good
friend, replied Lamela, you forget that you are deposing to facts,
and not arguing.  Remember what I told you; contempt of court is a
heinous offence.  You are to give a sound and discreet evidence;
every iota of what makes against him, and not a word in his favor, if
you knew volumes.  If that is your practice, O upright and impartial
judge, resumed our host, my testimony will scarcely be worth the
trouble of taking.  I know nothing about the tradesman you are
inquiring after, and therefore can tell neither good nor harm of him;
but if you wish to examine into the history of his private life, I
will run and call Gaspard, his apprentice, whom you may question as
much as you please.  The lad comes and takes his glass here sometimes
with his friends.  Bless us, what a tongue!  He will rip up all the
minutest actions of his master's life, and find employment for your
secretary till his wrist aches, take my word for it.

I like your open dealing, said Ambrose with a nod of approbation.  To
point out a man so capable of speaking to the bad morals of Simon, is
an instance of Christian charity as well as of religious zeal.  I
shall report you very favorably to the inquisition.  Make haste,
therefore; go and fetch this Gaspard, of whom you speak; but do the
thing cautiously, so that his master may have no suspicion of what is
going forward.  The multiplier of scores acquitted himself of his
commission with due diligence and laudable privacy.  Our little
shopman came along with him.  The youth had a tongue with a tang, and
was just the sort of fellow that we wanted.  Welcome, my good young
man! said Lamela.  You behold in me an inquisitor, appointed by that
venerable body to collect informations against Samuel Simon, on an
accusation of still adhering to Judaism in his secret devotions.  You
are an inmate of his family; consequently you must be an eye-witness
to many of his most private transactions.  It probably may be
unnecessary to warn you, that you are obliged in conscience, and by
fear of punishment, to declare all you know about him,
notwithstanding any promise to the contrary, when I order you so to
do on the part of the holy inquisition.  May it please your
reverence, answered the plodding little rascal, I am quite ready to
satisfy your heart's desire on that head, without being commanded
thereto in the name of the holy office.  If ever my acquittal was to
depend on my master's character of me, I am persuaded that my chance
would be a sorry one; and for that reason, I shall serve him as he
would serve me.  And I may tell you in the first place, that he is a
fly-by-night whose proceedings it is no easy matter to take measure
of; a man who puts on all the starch formalities of an inveterate
religionist, but at bottom has not a spark of principle in his
composition.  He goes every evening dangling after a little girl no
better than she should be....  I am vastly glad indeed to find that,
interrupted Ambrose, because I plainly perceive, by all you have been
telling me, that he is a man of corrupt morals and licentious
practices.  But answer point by point to the questions I shall put to
you.  It is above all on the subject of religion that I am
commissioned to inquire into his sentiments and conduct.  Pray tell
me, do you eat much pork at your house?  I do not think, answered
Gaspard, that we have seen it at table twice in the year that I have
lived with him.  Better and better! replied the paragon of
inquisitors: write down in legible characters that they never eat
pork in Samuel Simon's family.  But as a set-off against that,
doubtless a joint of lamb is served up every now and then?  Yes,
every now and then, rejoined the apprentice; we killed one for our
own consumption about last Easter.  The season is pat and to the
purpose, cried the ecclesiastical commissioner.  Come, write down,
that Simon keeps the passover.  This goes on merrily to a complete
conviction; and it seems we have got a good serviceable information
here.

Tell me again, my friend, pursued Lamela, whether you have not often
seen your master fondle young children.  A thousand times, answered
Gaspard.  When he sees the little urchins playing about before the
shop, if they happen to be pretty, he calls them in and makes much of
them.  Write that down, be sure you write that down! interrupted the
inquisitor.  Samuel Simon is very grievously suspected of lying in
wait for Christian children, and enticing them into his den to
circumcise them.  Vastly well!  vastly well, indeed, Master Simon!
you will have an account to settle with the society for the
suppression of Judaism, take my word for it.  Do not take it into
your savage head that such bloody sacrifices are to be perpetrated
with impunity.  A pretty use you make of baptism and shaving!  Cheer
up, religious Gaspard, thou foremost of elect apprentices!  Make a
full confession of all thy master's sins; complete thine honest
testimony by telling us how this simular of a Catholic is more than
ever wedded to his Jewish customs and ceremonies.  Is it not a fact
that one day in the week he sits with his hands before him, and will
not even perform the most necessary offices for himself?  No,
answered Gaspard, I have not exactly observed that.  What comes
nearest to it is, that on some days he shuts himself up in his
closet, and stays there a long time.  Ay! now we have it, exclaimed
the commissary.  He keeps the Sabbath, or I am not an inquisitor.
Note that particularly, officer; note that he observes the fast of
the Sabbath most superstitiously!  Out upon him!  What a shocking
fellow!  One question more, and his business is done.  Is not he
always parleying about Jerusalem?  Pretty often indeed, replied our
informer.  He knows the Old Testament by heart, and tells us how the
temple of Jerusalem was destroyed.  The very thing! resumed Ambrose.
Secretary! be sure you do not neglect that feature of the case.
Write, in letters of an inch long, that Samuel Simon has contracted
with the devil for the rebuilding of the temple, and that he is
plotting day and night for the reëstablishment of his nation.  That
is all I want to know; and it is labor in vain to pursue the
examination any further.  What Gaspard, in the spirit of truth and
charity, has deposed, would be sufficient to make a bonfire of all
Jewry.

When the august mouth-piece of the holy tribunal had sifted the
little scoundrelly apprentice after this manner, he told him he might
go about his business; at the same time commanding him, under the
severest penalties of the inquisition, not to say a word to his
master about what was going forward.  Gaspard promised implicit
obedience, and marched off.  We were not long in coming after him;
our procession from the inn was as grave and solemn as our pilgrimage
thereunto, till we knocked at Samuel Simon's door.  He opened it in
person.  Three figures such as ours might have dumfounded a better
man; but his face was as long as a lawsuit, when Lamela, our
spokesman, said to him in a tone of authority, Master Samuel, I
command you in the name of the holy inquisition, whose delegate I
have the honor to be, to give me the key of your closet without
murmur or delay.  I want to see if I cannot find wherewithal to
corroborate certain hints which have been communicated to us
respecting you.

The son of commerce, aghast at these sounds of melancholy import,
reeled two steps backward, just as if some one had given him a blow
in the bread-basket.  Far from smelling a rat in this pleasant trick
of ours, he fancied in good earnest that some secret enemy had made
him an object of suspicion to the holy hue-and-cry; and it might
possibly have happened that, from being rather clumsy at his new
duties as a Christian, he might be conscious of having laid himself
open to serious animadversion.  However that might be, I never saw a
man look more foolish.  He did as he was ordered without saying nay,
and opened all his lock-up places with the sheepish acquiescence of a
man who stood in awe of an ecclesiastical rap on the knuckles.  At
least, said Ambrose as he went in, at least you are not a
contumacious oppugner of our resistless mandates.  But withdraw into
another room, and leave me to fulfil the duties of my station without
profane observers.  Samuel did not set his face against this command
any more than against the first, but kept himself quiet in his shop,
while we went all three of us into his closet, where, without loss of
time, we laid an embargo on his cash.  It was no difficult matter to
find it, for it lay in an open coffer, and in much larger quantity
than we could carry away.  There were a great many bags heaped up,
but all in silver.  Gold would have been more to our mind; but, as
robbers must not be choosers any more than beggars, we were obliged
to yield to the necessity of the case.  Not only did we line our
pockets with ducats, but the most unsearchable parts of our dress
were made the receptacles of our filchings.  Yet was there no outward
show of the heavy burden under which we tottered; thanks to the
cunning contrivance of Ambrose and Don Raphael, who proved that there
is nothing like being master of one's trade.

[Illustration: Samuel Simon's money chest]

We marched out of the closet, after having feathered our nests pretty
warmly; and then, for a reason which the reader will have no great
difficulty in guessing, the worshipful inquisitor produced his
padlock, and fixed it on the door with his own hands,--he affixed
moreover his own seal,--and then said to Simon, Master Samuel, I
forbid you, in the name of the holy inquisition, to touch either this
padlock or this seal, which it is your bounden duty to hold sacred,
since it is the authentic seal of our holy office.  I shall return
hither this time to-morrow, then and here to open my commission, and
provisionally to take off the interdict.  With this injunction, he
ordered the street door to be opened, and we made our escape after
the processional manner, out of our wits with joy.  As soon as we had
marched about fifty yards, we began to mend our pace into such a
quick step, aggravated by degrees into a leap and a bound, that we
were almost like vaulters and tumblers, in spite of the weight we
carried.  We were soon out of town, and mounting our horses once
more, pushed forward towards Segorba, with many a pious ejaculation
to the god Mercury, on the happy issue of so bold an attempt.




_CHAPTER II._

_THE DETERMINATION OF DON ALPHONSO AND GIL BLAS AFTER THIS ADVENTURE._

We travelled all night, according to our modest and unobtrusive
custom, so that we found ourselves, at sunrise, near a little village
two leagues from Segorba.  As we were all tired to death, it was
agreed, unanimously, to strike out of the highway, and rest under the
shade of some willows, which we saw at the foot of a little hill,
about ten or twelve hundred yards from the village, where it did not
seem expedient for us to halt.  These willows furnished us with an
agreeable retreat, by the side of a little brook which bubbled as it
washed their roots.  The place struck our fancy, and we resolved to
pass the day there.  We unbridled our horses, and turned them out to
grass, stretching our own gentle limbs on the soft sod.  There we
courted the drowsy god of innocent repose for a while, and then
rummaged to the bottom of our wallet and our wine-skin.  After an
ecclesiastical breakfast, we counted up our ten tithes of Samuel
Simon's money, and it mounted to a round three thousand ducats.  So
that, with such a sum and what we had before, it might be said
without boasting that we knew how to make both ends meet.

As it was necessary to go to market, Ambrose and Don Raphael,
throwing off their dresses now the play was over, said that they
would take that office conjointly on themselves: the adventure at
Xelva had only sharpened their wit, and they had a mind to look about
Segorba, just to make the experiment whether any opportunity might
offer of striking another stroke.  You have nothing to do, added the
heir of Lucinda's wit and wisdom, but to wait for us under these
willows; we shall not be long before we are with you again.  Signor
Don Raphael, exclaimed I with a horse-laugh, tell us rather to wait
for you under a more substantial tree--the gallows.  If you once
leave us, we are in a month's mind that we shall not see you again
till the day after the fair.  This suspicion of our honor goes
against the grain, replied Signor Ambrose; but we deserve that our
characters should suffer in your esteem.  It is but reason that you
should distrust our purity, after the affair at Valladolid, and
should fancy that we shall make it no more a matter of conscience to
play at the devil take the hindmost with you, than with the party
that we left in the lurch in that town.  Yet you deceive yourselves
egregiously.  The gang upon whom we turned the tables were people of
very bad character, and their company began to be disreputable to us.
Thus far justice must be done to the members of our profession, that
there is no bond in all civilized life less liable to be broken by
personal and private interest; but when there are no feelings in
common, our good understanding will be the worse for wear, as it
happens among other descriptions of men.  Wherefore, Signor Gil Blas,
I entreat you, and Signor Don Alphonso as well as you, to be somewhat
more liberal in your construction of us, and to set your hearts at
ease respecting Don Raphael's and my whim about going to Segorba.

It is the easiest thing in the world, observed Lucinda's hopeful
brat, to quash all subject of uneasiness on that score; they have
only to remain treasurers of the exchequer, and they will have a
sufficient pledge in their hands for our return.  You see, Signor Gil
Blas, that we are all fair and above board.  You shall both hold
security for our reappearance, and you may rest assured that for
Ambrose and myself, we shall set off without the slightest misgiving
of your taking to your heels with so valuable a deposit.  After so
substantial a proof of our good faith, will you not place implicit
confidence in us?  Yes, gentlemen, said I, and you may do at once
whatever seems good in your own eyes.  They took their departure
immediately, carrying the bottle and the wallet along with them, and
left me under the willows with Don Alphonso, who said to me, after
they were out of sight, Now is the time, Signor Gil Blas, now is the
time to open my heart to you.  I am angry with myself for having been
so easily prevailed on to herd thus far with these two knaves.  You
have no idea how many times I have quarrelled with myself on that
score.  Yesterday evening, while I was watching the horses, a
thousand mortifying reflections rushed upon my mind.  I thought it
did not become a young man of honorable principles to live among such
scurvy fellows as Don Raphael and Lamela; that if by ill luck, some
day or other,--and many a more unlikely thing has happened,--the
success of our swindling tricks should throw us into the hands of
justice, I might sustain the shame of being tried with them as a
reputed thief, and undergoing the disgraceful sentence of the law.
These frightful thoughts present themselves incessantly to my
imagination, and I will own to you that I have determined, as the
only means of escape from the contamination of their bad actions, to
part from them forever.  I can scarcely suppose that you will
disapprove of my design.  No, I promise you, answered I; though you
have seen me perform the part of the alguazil in Samuel Simon's
comedy, do not fancy that such pieces as those are got up to my
taste.  I take heaven to witness that while acting in so witty a
scene, I said to myself, Faith and troth, Master Gil Blas, if justice
should come and lay hold of you by the weasand at this moment, you
would well deserve the penitential wages of your iniquity.  I feel
therefore no more disposed than yourself, Don Alphonso, to tarry
longer in such bad company; and if you think well of it, I will bear
you company.  When these gentlemen come back, we will demand a
balancing of the accounts, and to-morrow morning, or even to-night
before to-morrow, we will make our bow to them.

The lovely Seraphina's lover approved my proposal.  Let us get to
Valencia, said he, and we will embark for Italy, where we shall be
able to enter into the service of the Venetian republic.  Will it not
be far better to take up the profession of arms, than to lead such a
dastardly and disreputable life as we are now engaged in?  We shall
even be in a condition to make a very handsome figure with the money
that will be coming to us.  Not that I appropriate to myself without
remorse a fund so unfairly established; but besides that necessity
obliges me to it, if ever I acquire any property in my campaigns, I
make a vow to indemnify Samuel Simon.  I gave Don Alphonso to
understand that my sentiments coincided with his own, and we resolved
at once to separate ourselves from our companions on the following
morning before daybreak.  We were above the temptation of profiting
by their absence, that is, of marching off in a hurry with the sum
total of the finances; the confidence they had reposed in leaving us
masters of the whole revenue did not permit such a thought so much as
to pass through our minds.

Ambrose and Don Raphael returned from Segorba just at the close of
day.  The first thing they told us was, that their journey had been
propitious, for they had laid the corner-stone of a rascality which,
to all appearance, would turn out still better than that of the
evening before.  And thereupon the son of Lucinda was going to put us
in possession of the details; but Don Alphonso cut him short in his
explanation, and declared at once his intention of parting company.
I announced my own wish to do the same.  To no purpose did they
employ all their rhetoric to prove to us the propriety of our
accompanying them in their professional travels; we took leave of
them the next morning, after having made an equal division of our
cash, and pushed on towards Valencia.




_CHAPTER III._

_UNFORTUNATE OCCURRENCE, WHICH TERMINATED TO THE HIGH DELIGHT OF DON
ALPHONSO.  GIL BLAS MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE WHICH PLACES HIM ALL AT
ONCE IN A VERY SUPERIOR SITUATION._

We galloped on gayly as far as Bunol, where, us ill luck would have
it, we were obliged to stop.  Don Alphonso was taken ill.  His
disorder was a high fever, with such an access of alarming symptoms
as put me in fear for his life.  By the greatest mercy in the world,
the place was not beset by a single physician, and I got clear off
without any harm but my fright.  He was quite out of danger at the
end of three days, and with my nursing, his recovery was rapid and
without relapse.  He seemed to be very grateful for my attentions;
and as we really and truly felt a liking for each other, we swore an
eternal friendship.

At length we got on our journey again, in the constant determination,
when we arrived at Valencia, of profiting by the first opportunity
which might offer to go over into Italy.  But heaven disposed of us
differently.  We saw at the gate of a fine castle some country people
of both sexes making merry and dancing in a ring.  We went near to be
spectators of their revels; and Don Alphonso was never less prepared
than for the surprise which all at once came over his senses.  He
found it was Baron Steinbach, who was as little backward in
recognizing him, but ran up to him with open arms, and exclaimed, in
accents of unbridled joy, Ah, Don Alphonso! is it you?  What a
delightful meeting!  While search was making for you in every
direction, chance presents you to my view.

My fellow-traveller dismounted immediately, and ran to embrace the
baron, whose joy seemed to me of an extravagant nature.  Come, my
long-lost son, said the good old man; you shall now be informed of
your own birth, and know the happy destiny that awaits you.  As he
uttered these words, he conducted him into the castle.  I went in
along with them, for while they were exchanging salutations, I had
alighted and tied our horses to a tree.  The lord of the castle was
the first person whom we met.  He was about the age of fifty, and a
very well-looking man.  Sir, said Baron Steinbach, as he introduced
Don Alphonso, behold your son.  At these words, Don Cæsar da
Leyva--for by that title the lord of the castle was called--threw his
arms round Don Alphonso's neck, and weeping with joy, muttered
indistinctly, My dear son, know in me the author of your being.  If I
have for so long left you in ignorance of your birth and family, rest
assured that the self-denial was mine in the most painful degree.  I
have a thousand times been ready to burst with anxiety, but it was
impossible to act otherwise.  I had married your mother from sheer
attachment, for her origin was very inferior to mine.  I lived under
the control of an austere father, whose severity rendered it
necessary to keep secret a marriage contracted without his sanction.
Baron Steinbach, and he alone, was in my confidence; he brought you
up at my request, and under my directions.  At length my father is
laid with his ancestors, and I can own you for my son and heir.  This
is not all; I can give you for a bride a young lady whose rank is on
a level with my own.  Sir, interrupted Don Alphonso, make me not pay
too dear for the happiness you have just been throwing in my lap.
May I not be told that I have the honor of being your son without
being informed at the same time that you are determined to make me
miserable?  Ah, sir! be not more cruel than your own father.  If he
did not consent to the indulgence of your passion, at least he never
compelled you to take another wife.  My son, replied Don Cæsar, I
have no wish to exercise a tyranny over your inclinations which I
spurned at in my own case.  But have the good manners just to see the
lady I design for you; that is all I require from your filial duty.
Though a lovely creature and a very advantageous match, I promise
never to force you into marriage.  She is now in this castle.  Follow
me; you will be obliged to acknowledge that you have rarely seen a
more attractive object.  So saying, he led Don Alphonso into a room
where I made myself one of the party with Baron Steinbach.

There was the Count de Polan with his two daughters, Seraphina and
Julia, and Don Ferdinand de Leyva, his son-in-law, who was Don
Cæsar's nephew.  Don Ferdinand, as was mentioned before, had eloped
with Julia, and it was on the occasion of the marriage between these
two lovers that the peasantry of the neighborhood were collected on
this day to congratulate the bride and bridegroom.  As soon as Don
Alphonso made his appearance, and his father had introduced him to
the company, the Count de Polan rose from his chair and ran to
embrace him, saying, Welcome, my deliverer!  Don Alphonso, added he,
addressing his discourse to him, observe the power of virtue over
generous minds.  Though you have killed my son, you saved my life.  I
lay aside my resentment forever, and give you that very Seraphina
whose honor you protected from invasion.  In so doing, my debt to you
is paid.  Don Cæsar's son was not wanting in acknowledgments to the
Count de Polan, nor could he be otherwise than deeply affected by his
goodness; and it may be doubted whether the discovery of his birth
and parentage touched his felicity more nearly than the intelligence
that he was the destined husband of Seraphina.  This marriage was
actually solemnized some days afterwards, to the entire satisfaction
of all parties concerned.

As I was one of the Count de Polan's deliverers, this nobleman, who
knew me again immediately, said that he would take upon himself the
care of making my fortune.  I thanked him for his liberality, but
would not leave Don Alphonso, who made me steward of his household,
and honored me with his confidence.  A few days after his marriage,
still harping upon the trick which had been played to Samuel Simon,
he sent me to return to that cozened shopkeeper all the money which
had been filched from him.  I went therefore to make restitution.
This was setting up the trade of a steward, but beginning at the
wrong end: they ought all of them to end with restitution; but nine
hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand think it double trouble,
and excuse themselves.




BOOK THE SEVENTH.



_CHAPTER I._

_THE TENDER ATTACHMENT BETWEEN GIL BLAS AND DAME LORENZA SEPHORA._

Away went I to Xelva with three thousand ducats under my charge, as
an equivalent to Samuel Simon for the amount of his loss.  I will
have the honesty to own that my fingers itched, as I jogged along, to
transfer these funds to my own account, and begin my stewardship in
character, since everything in this life depends upon setting out
well.  There was no risk in preferring instinct to principle, because
it was only to ride about the country for five or six days, and come
home upon a brisk trot, as if I had done my business and made the
best of my way.  Don Alphonso and his father would never have
believed me capable of a breach of trust.  Yet, strange to tell, I
was proof against so tempting a suggestion; it would scarcely be too
much to say, that honor, not the fear of being found out, was the
spring of so praiseworthy a decision; and as times go, that is saying
a great deal for a lad whose conscience had been pretty well seasoned
by keeping company with a long succession of scoundrels.  Many people
who have not that excuse, but frequent worshipful society, will
wonder how such squeamishness should have prevailed over my good
sense: treasurers of charities in particular; persons who have the
wills of relations in their custody, and do not exactly like the
contents; in short, all those whose characters stand higher than
their principles, will find food for reflection in my overstrained
scrupulosity.

After having made restitution to the merchant, who little thought
ever to have seen one farthing of his property again, I returned to
the castle of Leyva.  The Count de Polan had taken his departure, and
was far on his journey to Toledo with Julia and Don Ferdinand.  I
found my new master more wrapped up than ever in Seraphina; his
Seraphina equally wrapped up in my master, and Don Cæsar just as much
wrapped up as either in the contemplation of the happy couple.  My
object was to gain the good will of this affectionate father, and I
succeeded to my wish.  The whole house was placed implicitly under my
superintendence--nothing was done without my special direction; the
tenants paid their rents into my hands; the disbursements of the
family were all under my revision; and the subordinate situations in
the household were at my disposal without appeal; and yet the power
of tyrannizing did not give me the inclination, as it has always
hitherto done to my equals and superiors.  I neither turned away the
male servants because I did not like the cut of their beards, nor the
female ones because they happened not to like the cut of mine.  If
they made up to Don Cæsar or his son at once, without currying my
favor as the channel of all good graces, far from taking umbrage at
them on that account, I spoke out officiously in their behalf.  In
other respects, too, the marks of confidence my two masters were
incessantly lavishing on me inspired me with a substantial zeal for
their service.  Their interest was my real object; there was no
sleight of hand in my ministry; I was such a caterer for the general
good as you rarely meet with in private families or in political
societies.

While I was hugging myself on the well-earned prosperity of my
condition, love, jealous of my dealings with fortune, was bent on
sharing my gratitude by the addition of a higher zest.  He planted,
watered, and ripened in the heart of Dame Lorenza Sephora,
Seraphina's confidential woman, an abundant crop of liking for the
happy steward.  My Helen, not to sink the fidelity of the historian
in the vanity of the man, could not be many months short of her
fiftieth year.  But for all that, a look of wholesomeness, a face
none of the ugliest, and two good-looking eyes of which she knew the
efficient use, might make her still pass for a decent bit of
amusement in a summer evening.  I could only just have been thankful
for a little more relief to her complexion, since it was precisely
the color of chalk; but that I attributed to maiden concealments,
which had eat away all the damask of her cheek.

The lady ogled me for a long time with ogles that savored more of
passion than of chastity; but instead of communing in the language of
the eyes, I made pretence at first not to be sensible of my own
happiness.  Thus did my gallantry appear as if arrayed in its first
blushes; a circumstance which was rather tempting than repulsive to
her feelings.  Taking it into her head, therefore, that there was no
standing upon dumb eloquence with a young man who looked more like a
novice than he was, at our very first interview she declared her
sentiments in broad, unequivocal terms, that I might have no plea for
misinterpretation.  She played her part like an old stager; affected
to be overwhelmed with confusion while she was speaking to me; and
after having said all she wanted to say in a good audible voice, put
her hand before her face, to hide the shame which was not there, and
make me believe that she was incommoded by the delicacy of her own
feelings.  There was no standing such an attack; and though vanity
had a larger share in my surrender than the tender passion, I did not
receive her overtures ungraciously.  Nay, more, I presumed to
overlook decorum in my vivacity, and acted the impatient lover so
naturally as to call down a modest rebuke upon my freedoms.  Lorenza
chid my fondness, but with so much fondness in her chidings, that
while she prescribed to me the coldness of an anchorite, it was very
evident she would have been miserably disappointed if I had taken her
prescription.  I should have pressed the affair at once to the
natural termination of all such affairs, if the lovely object of my
ardent wishes had not been afraid of giving me a left-handed opinion
of her virtue, by abandoning the works before the siege was regularly
formed.  This being so, we parted, but with a promise to meet again;
Sephora in the full persuasion that her reluctant resistance would
stamp her for a vestal in my esteem, and myself full of the sweet
hope that the torments of Tantalus would soon be succeeded by an
elysium of enjoyment.

My affairs were in this happy train, when one of Don Cæsar's under
servants brought me such a piece of news as gave an ague to my
raptures.  This lad was one of those inquisitive inmates who apply
either an ear or an eye to every keyhole in a house.  As he paid his
court constantly to me, and served up some fresh piece of scandal
every day, he came to tell me one morning that he had made a pleasant
discovery; and that he had no objection to letting me into the fun,
on condition that I would not blab; because Dame Lorenza Sephora was
the theme of the joke, and he was afraid of becoming obnoxious to her
resentment and revenge.  I was too much interested in coming at the
story he had to tell, not to swear myself into discretion through
thick and thin; but it was necessary that my motive should seem
curiosity, and not personal concern, so that I asked him, with an air
of as much indifference as I could put on, what was this mighty
discovery about which he made such a piece of work.  Lorenza,
whispered he, smuggles the surgeon of the village every evening into
her apartment: he is a tight vessel, well armed and manned; and the
pirate generally stays pretty long upon his cruise.  I do not mean to
say, added he, with supercilious candor, but that all this may be
perfectly innocent on both sides, but you cannot help admitting that
where a young man does insinuate himself slyly into a girl's
bed-chamber, he takes better care of his own pleasure than of her
reputation.

Though this tale gave me as much uneasiness as if I had been verily
and romantically in love, I had too much sense to let him know it;
but so far stifled my feelings as to laugh heartily at a story which
struck at the very life of all my hopes.  But when no witnesses were
by, I made myself full amends for having gulped down my rising
indignation.  I blustered and stormed, muttered blessings on them the
wrong way, and swore outright; but all this without coming nearer to
a decision on my own conduct.  At one time, holding Lorenza in utter
contempt, it was my good pleasure to give her up altogether, without
condescending so far as to come to any explanation with the coquette.
At another time, laying it down as a principle that my honor was
concerned in making the surgeon an example to all intriguers, I
spirited up my courage to call him out.  Thus dangerous valor
prevailed over safe indifference.  At the approach of evening I
placed myself in ambuscade; and sure enough, the gentleman did slink
into the temple of my Vesta, with a fear of being found out that
spoke rather unfavorably for the purity of his designs.  Nothing
short of this could have kept my rage alive against the chilliness of
the night air.  I immediately quitted the precincts of the castle,
and posted myself on the high road, where the gay deceiver was sure
to be intercepted on his return.  I waited for him with my fighting
spirits on the full boil: my impatience increased with the lapse of
time, till Mars and Bellona seemed to inhabit my frame, and enlarge
it beyond human dimensions.  At length my antagonist came in sight.
I took a few strides, such as bully Mars or Bellona might have taken;
but I do not know how the devil it came to pass, my courage went
farther off as my body came nearer; my frame was contracted within
somewhat less than its human dimensions, and my heart felt exactly
like the heart of a coward.  The hearts of Homer's heroes felt
exactly the same, when the dastardly dogs were not backed by a
supernatural Drawcansir!  In short, I was just as much out of my
element as ever Paris was when he pitted himself against Menelaus in
single combat.  I began taking measure of this operator in love, war,
and anatomy.  He appeared to be large limbed and well knit, with a
sword by his side of a most abominable length.  All this made me
consider that the better part of valor is discretion: nevertheless,
whether from the superiority of mind over the nervous system in a
case of honor, or from whatever other cause, though the danger grew
bigger as the distance diminished, and in spite of nature, which
pleaded obstinately that honor is a mere scutcheon, and can neither
set a leg nor take away the grief of a wound, I mustered up boldness
enough to march forward towards the surgeon sword in hand.

My proceeding seemed to him to be of the drollest.  What is the
matter, Signor Gil Blas? exclaimed he.  Why all this fire and fury?
You are in a bantering mood, to all appearance.  No, good master
shaver, answered I, no such thing; there never was anything more
serious since Cain killed Abel.  I am determined to try the
experiment, whether as little preparation serves your turn in the
field of battle as in a lady's chamber.  Hope not that you will be
suffered to possess without a rival that heaven of bliss in which you
have been indulging but this moment at the castle.  By all the
martyrdoms we phlebotomizers have ever suffered or inflicted, replied
the surgeon, setting up a shout of laughter, this is a most whimsical
adventure.  As heaven is my judge, appearances are very little to be
trusted.  At this put off, fancying that he had no keener stomach for
cold iron than myself, I got to be ten times more overbearing.  Teach
your parrot to speak better Spanish, my friend, interrupted I; do you
think we do not know a hawk from a hernshaw?  Imagine not that the
simple denial of the fact will settle the business.  I see plainly,
replied he, that I shall be obliged to speak out, or some mischief
must happen either to you or me.  I shall therefore disclose a secret
to you, though men in our profession cannot be too much on the
reserve.  If Dame Lorenza sends for me into her apartment under
suspicious circumstances, it is only to conceal from the servants the
knowledge of her malady.  She has an incurable ulcer in her back,
which I come every evening to dress.  This is the real occasion of
those visits which disturb your peace.  Henceforward, rest assured
that you have her all to yourself.  But if you are not satisfied with
this explanation, and are absolutely bent on a fencing match, you
have only to say so: I am not a man to turn my back upon a game at
sword play.  With these words in his mouth, he drew his long rapier,
which made my heart jump into my throat, and stood upon his guard.
It is enough, said I, putting my sword up again in its scabbard; I am
not a wild beast, to turn a deaf ear to reason: after what you have
told me, there is no cause of enmity between us.  Let us shake hands.
At this proposal, by which he found out that I was not such a devil
of a fellow as he had taken me for, he returned his weapon with a
laugh, met my advances to be reconciled, and we parted the best
friends in the world.

From that time forward Sephora never came into my thoughts but with
the most disgusting associations.  I shunned all the opportunities
she gave me of entertaining her in private, and this with so obvious
a study, almost bordering on rudeness, that she could not but notice
it.  Astonished at so sudden a reverse, she was dying to know the
cause, and at length, finding the means of pinning me down to a
tête-à-tête, Good Mr. Steward, said she, tell me, if so please you,
why you avoid the very sight of me?  It is true that I made the first
advances; but then you fed the consuming fire.  Recall to memory, if
it is not too great a favor, the private interview wo had together.
Then you were a magazine of combustibles, now you are as frozen as
the north sea.  What is the meaning of all this?  The question was
not a little difficult of solution, for a man unaccustomed to the
violence of amorous interrogatories.  The consequence was, that it
puzzled me most confoundedly.  I do not precisely recollect the
identical lie I told the lady, but I recollect perfectly that nothing
but the truth could have affronted her more highly.  Sephora, though
by her mincing air and modest outside one might have taken her for a
lamb, was a tigress when the savage was roused in her nature.  I did
think, said she, darting a glance at me full of malice and
hideousness, I did think to have conferred such honor as was never
conferred before, on a little scoundrel like you, by betraying
sentiments which the first nobility in the country would make it
their boast to excite.  Fitly indeed am I punished for having
preposterously lowered myself to the level of a dirty, snivelling
adventurer.

That was pretty well; but she did not stop there: I should have come
off too cheaply on such terms.  Her fury taking a long lease of her
tongue, that brawling instrument of discord rung a bob-major of
invective, each strain more clamorous and confounding than the
former.  It certainly was my duty to have received it all with cool
indifference, and to have considered candidly that in triumphing over
female reserve, and then not taking possession of the conquest, I had
committed that sin against the sex which would have transformed the
most feminine of them into a Sephora.  But I was too irritable to
bear abuse, at which a man of sense in my place would only have
laughed; and my patience was at length exhausted.  Madam, said I, let
us not rake into each other's personal misfortunes.  If the first
nobility in the country had only looked at your back, they would have
forgotten all your other charms, and have boasted but little of the
sentiments they had excited you to betray.  I had no sooner laid in
this home stroke, than the enraged duenna visited me with the hardest
box on the ear that ever yet proceeded from the delicate fingers of a
woman scorned.  Such favors might pall on repetition; so I did not
wait for a second, but took shelter in the nimbleness of my legs from
the clatter of castigation she was going to shower down on me.

I returned thanks to the protecting powers for having brought me
clear off from this unequal encounter, and fancied that I had nothing
further to apprehend, since the lady had taken corporal vengeance.
It was likely, too, that she would be wise and hold her tongue, for
the honor of her own back; and, in point of fact, a full fortnight
had elapsed without my hearing a word upon the subject.  The very
tingling in my own cheek began to abate, when I was told that Sephora
was taken ill.  With that forgiveness of injuries so natural to me, I
was sincerely afflicted at the news.  I really felt for the poor
lady.  I concluded that, unable to contend with a passion so ill
repaid, that hapless victim of her own tenderness was giving up the
ghost.  It was with exquisite pain that I turned this subject in my
thoughts.  I was the cruel cause that her heart was breaking; and my
pity, at least, was the duenna's, though love is too wayward to be
controlled by advice.  But I was miserably mistaken in her nature.
Her tenderness had all curdled into acrimonious hatred; and at that
very moment was she plotting to be my bane.

One morning, while I was with Don Alphonso, that amiable young master
of mine was absent, moody, and out of spirits.  I inquired
respectfully what was the matter.  I am vexed to the soul, said he,
to find Seraphina weak, unjust, ungrateful.  You are not a little
surprised at this, added he, remarking the expression of astonishment
with which I heard him; yet nothing is more strictly and lamentably
true.  I know not what reason you have given Dame Lorenza to be at
variance with you; but true it is, you are become so unbearably
hateful to her, that if you do not get out of this castle as soon as
possible, her death, she says, must be the sure consequence.  You
cannot but suppose that Seraphina, who knows your value, used all her
influence at first against a prejudice to which she could not
administer without injustice and ingratitude.  But though the best of
women, she is still a woman.  Sephora brought her up, and she loves
her like a mother.  Should her old nurse die shortly, she would fancy
she had her death to answer for, had she refused herself to any of
her whims.  For my own part, with all my affection towards
Seraphina,--and it is none of the weakest,--I will never be guilty of
so mean a compliance as to side with her on this question.  Perish
our duennas! perish the whole system of our Spanish vigilance! but
never let me consent to the banishment of a young man whom I look
upon rather as a brother than a servant!

When Don Alphonso had thus expressed his sentiments, I said to him,
My good sir, I am born to be the mere whipping-top of fortune.  It
had been my hope that she would leave off persecuting me when under
your roof, where everything held out to me happy days and an
unruffled life.  Now, the part for honor to take is to tear myself
away, whatever hankering I may feel after my continuance.  No, no,
exclaimed the generous son of Don Cæsar.  Leave me to bring Seraphina
to a proper view of things.  It shall never be said that you are
sacrificed to the caprices of a duenna, who, on every occasion, has
but too much influence over the family.  All you will get by it, sir,
replied I, will only be to put Seraphina in an ill humor by opposing
her wishes.  I had much rather withdraw, than run the risk, by a
longer abode here, of sowing division between a married pair, who are
a model of conjugal felicity.  Such a consequence of my unhappy
quarrel would make me miserable for the remainder of my days.

Don Alphonso absolutely forbade me to take any hasty step; and I
found him so determined in the intention of standing by me, that
Lorenza must infallibly have been thrown into the background, if I
had chosen to have stood an election against her.  There were moments
when, exasperated against the duenna, I was tempted to keep no
measures with her; but when I came to consider that to unravel this
surgical mystery would be to plunge a dagger into the heart of a poor
creature, whose curse had been my fastidious prejudice against an
ulcerated back, and whom a physical and mental misfortune were
conjointly handing down to the grave, I lost all feeling but that of
compassion towards her.  It was evident, since I was so portentous a
phenomenon, that it was my imperious duty to reëstablish the
tranquillity of the castle by my absence; and that duty I performed
the next morning before daybreak, without taking any leave of my two
masters, for fear they should oppose my departure from a misplaced
partiality towards me.  My only notice was to leave behind in my
chamber a memorial, containing an exact account of my receipts and
disbursements during the time of my stewardship.




_CHAPTER II._

_WHAT HAPPENED TO GIL BLAS AFTER HIS RETREAT FROM THE CASTLE OF
LEYVA, SHOWING THAT THOSE WHO ARE CROSSED IN LOVE ARE NOT ALWAYS THE
MOST MISERABLE OF MANKIND._

I was mounted on a good horse, my own property, and was the bearer of
two hundred pistoles, the greater part of which arose from the
plunder of the vanquished banditti, and the forfeiture of Samuel
Simon by the Inquisition; for Don Alphonso, without requiring me to
account for any part of the said forfeiture, had made restitution of
the entire sum out of his own funds.  Thus, considering my effects,
however obtained, as converted into lawful property by a sort of
vicarious sponsorship, I took them into my good graces without any
remorse of conscience.  An estate like this rendered it absurd to
throw away any thought about the future; and a certain likelihood of
doing well, which always hangs about a young man at my age, held out
an additional security against the caprices of fortune.  Besides,
Toledo offered me a retreat exactly to my mind.  There could not be a
doubt but the Count de Polan would take a pleasure in giving a kind
reception to one of his deliverers, and would insist on his accepting
an apartment in his own house.  But I only looked upon this nobleman
as a very distant resource; and determined, before laying any tax on
his grateful recollection, to spend part of my ready cash in
travelling over the provinces of Murcia and Grenada, which I had a
very particular inclination to see.  With this intention I took the
Almanza road, and afterwards, following the route chalked out,
travelled from town to town as far as the city of Grenada, without
stumbling on any sinister occurrence.  It should seem as if fortune,
wearied out with the school-girl's tricks she had been playing me,
was contented at last to leave me as she found me.  But she still had
her skittish designs upon me, as will be seen in the sequel.

One of the first persons I met in the streets of Grenada was Signor
Don Ferdinand de Leyva, son-in-law, as well as Don Alphonso, of the
Count de Polan.  We were both of us equally surprised at meeting so
far from home.  How is this, Gil Blas? exclaimed he--to find you in
this city!  What the devil brings you hither?  Sir, said I, if you
are astonished at seeing me in this country, you will be ten times
more so when you shall know why I have quitted the service of Signor
Don Cæsar and his son.  Then I recounted to him all that had passed
between Sephora and myself, without garbling the facts in any
particular.  He laughed heartily at the recital; then, recovering his
gravity, My friend, said he, my mediation is at your service in this
affair.  I will write to my sister-in-law ... No, no, sir,
interrupted I, do not write upon the subject, I beseech you.  I did
not quit the castle of Leyva to go back again.  You may, if you
please, make another use of the kindness you have expressed for me.
If any of your friends should be looking out for a secretary or a
steward, I should be much obliged to you to speak a good word in my
favor.  I will take upon me to assure you that you will never be
reproached with recommending an improper object.  You have only to
command me, answered he; I will do whatever you desire.  My business
at Grenada is to visit an old aunt in an ill state of health.  I
shall be here three weeks longer, after which I shall set out on my
return to my castle of Lorqui, where I have left Julia.  That is my
lodging, added he, showing me a house about a hundred yards from us.
Call upon me in a few days; probably I may by that time have hit upon
some eligible appointment.

And, in fact, so it was; for the very first time that we came
together again, he said to me, My Lord Archbishop of Grenada, my
relation and friend, is in want of a young man with some little tinge
of literature, who can write a good hand and make fair copies of his
manuscripts, for he is a great author.  He has composed I know not
how many homilies, and still goes on composing more every day, which
he delivers to the high edification of his audience.  As you seem to
be just the thing for him, I have mentioned your name, and he has
promised to take you.  Go, and make your bow to him as from me; you
will judge, by his reception of you, whether my recommendation has
been couched in handsome terms.

The situation was, to all appearance, exactly what I should have
picked out for myself.  That being the case, with such an arrangement
of my air and person as seemed most likely to square with the ideas
of a reverend prelate, I presented myself one morning before the
archbishop.  If this were a gorgeous romance, and not a grave
history, here might we introduce a pompous description of the
episcopal palace, with architectural digressions on the structure of
the building; here would be the place to expatiate on the costliness
of the furniture like an upholsterer, to criticise the statues and
pictures like a connoisseur; and the pictures themselves would be
nothing to the uninformed reader, without the stories they represent,
till universal history, fabulous and authentic, sacred and profane,
should be pressed into the service.  But I shall content myself with
modestly stating that the royal palace itself is scarcely superior in
magnificence.

Throughout the suite of apartments, there was a complete mob of
ecclesiastics and other officers, consisting of chaplains, ushers,
upper and menial servants.  Those of them who were laymen were most
superbly attired; one would sooner have taken them for temporal
nobility than for spiritual under-strappers.  They were as proud as
the devil, and gave themselves intolerably consequential airs.  I
could not help laughing in my sleeve, when I considered who and what
they were, and how they behaved.  Set a beggar on horseback! said I.
These gentry are in luck to carry a pack without feeling the drag of
it, for surely if they knew they were beasts of burden, they would
not jingle their bells with so high a toss of the head.  I ventured
just to speak to a grave and portly personage who stood sentinel at
the door of the archbishop's closet, to turn it upon its hinges as
occasion might require.  I asked him civilly if there was no
possibility of speaking with my lord archbishop.  Stop a little, said
he, with a supercilious demeanor and repulsive tone; his grace will
shortly come forth, to go and hear mass; you may snatch an audience
for a moment as he passes on.  I answered not a single syllable.
Patience was all I had for it; and it even seemed advisable to try
and enter into conversation with some of the jacks in office; but
they began conning me over from the sole of my foot to the crown of
my head, without condescending to favor me with a single
interjection; after which they winked at one another, whispered, and
looked out at the corners of their eyes, in derision of the liberty I
had assumed, by intruding upon their select society.

I felt, more fool that I did so, quite out of countenance at such
cavalier treatment from a knot of state footmen.  My confusion was
but beginning to subside, when the closet door opened.  The
archbishop made his appearance.  A profound silence immediately
ensued among his officers, who quitted at once their insolent
behavior, to adopt a more respectful style before their master.  That
prelate was in his sixty-ninth year, formed nearly on the model of my
uncle, Gil Perez, the canon, which is as much as to say, as broad as
he was long.  But the highest dignitaries should always be the most
amply gifted; accordingly his legs bowed inwards to the very
extremity of the graceful curve, and his bald head retained but a
single lock behind, so that he was obliged to ensconce his
pericranium in a fine woollen cap with long ears.  In spite of all
this, I espied the man of quality in his deportment, doubtless,
because I knew that he actually happened to be one.  We common
fellows, the fungous growth of the human dunghill, look up to great
lords with a facility of being overawed, which often furnishes them
with a Benjamin's mess of importance when nature has denied even the
most scanty and trivial gifts.

The archbishop moved towards me in a minuet step, and kindly inquired
what I wanted.  I told him I was the young man about whom Signor Don
Ferdinand de Leyva had spoken to him.  He did not give me a moment to
go on with my story.  Ah! is it you? exclaimed he; is it you of whom
so fine a character has been given me?  I take you into my service at
once; you are a mine of literary utility to me.  You have only to
take up your abode here.  Talking thus condescendingly, he supported
himself between two ushers, and moved onwards, after having given
audience to some of his clergy, who had ecclesiastical business to
communicate.  He was scarcely out of the room, when the same officers
who had turned upon their heel, were now cap in hand to court my
conversation.  Here the rascals are, pressing round me, currying
favor, and expressing their sincere joy at seeing me become as it
were an heirloom of the archbishopric.  They had heard what their
master had said, and were dying with anxiety to know on what footing
I was to be about him; but I had the ill nature not to satisfy their
curiosity, in revenge for their contempt.

My lord archbishop was not long before he returned.  He took me with
him into his closet for a little private conference.  I could not but
suppose that he meant to fathom the depth of my understanding.  I was
accordingly on my guard, and prepared to measure out my words most
methodically.  He questioned me first in the classics.  My answers
were not amiss; he was convinced that I had more than a schoolboy's
acquaintance with the Greek and Latin writers.  He examined me next
in logic; nor could I but suppose that he would examine me in logic.
He found me strong enough there.  Your education, said he, with some
degree of surprise, has not been neglected.  Now let us see your
handwriting.  I took a blank piece of paper out of my pocket, which I
had brought for the purpose.  My ghostly father was not displeased
with my performance.  I am very well satisfied with the mechanical
part of your qualifications, exclaimed he, and still more so with the
powers of your mind.  I shall thank my nephew, Don Ferdinand, most
heartily, for having sent me so fine a lad; it is absolutely a gift
from above.

We were interrupted by some of the neighboring gentry, who were come
to dine with the archbishop.  I left them together, and withdrew to
the second table, where the whole household, with one consent,
insisted on giving me the upper hand.  Dinner is a busy time at an
episcopal ordinary; and yet we snatched a moment to make our
observations on each other.  What a mortified propriety was painted
on the outside of the clergy!  They had all the look of a deputation
from a better world: strange to think how place and circumstance
impose on the deluded sense of men!  It never once came into my
thoughts that all this sanctity might possibly be a false coin; just
as if there could be nothing but what appertained to the kingdom
above, among the successors of the apostles on earth.

I was seated by the side of an old valet-de-chambre, by name Melchior
de la Ronda.  He took care to help me to all the nice bits.  His
attentions were not lost upon me, and my good manners quite
enraptured him.  My worthy sir, said he, in a low voice, after dinner
I should like to have a little private talk with you.  At the same
time he led the way to a part of the palace where we could not be
overheard, and there addressed me as follows: My son, from the very
first instant that I saw you, I felt a certain prepossession in your
favor.  Of this I will give you a certain proof, by communicating in
confidence what will be of great service to you.  You are here in a
family where true believers and painted hypocrites are playing at
cross purposes against each other.  It would take an antediluvian age
to feel the ground under your feet.  I will spare so long and so
disgusting a study, by letting you into the characters on both sides.
After this, if you do not play your cards, it is your own fault.

I shall begin with his grace.  He is a very pious prelate, employed
without ceasing in the instruction of the people, whom he brings back
to virtue, like sheep gone astray, by sermons full of excellent
morality, and written by himself.  He has retired from court these
twenty years, to watch over his flock with the zeal of an
affectionate pastor.  He is a very learned person, and a very
impressive declaimer: his whole delight is in preaching, and his
congregation take care he should know that their whole delight is in
hearing him.  There may possibly be some little leaven of vanity in
all this heavenly-mindedness; but, besides that it is not for human
fallibility to search the heart, it would ill become me to rake into
the faults of a person whose bread I eat.  Were it decent to lay my
finger on any thing unbecoming in my master, I should discommend his
starchness.  Instead of exercising forbearance towards frail
churchmen, he visits every peccadillo as if it were a heinous
offence.  Above all, he prosecutes those with the utmost rigor of the
spiritual court, who, wrapping themselves up in their innocence,
appeal to the canons for their justification, in bar of his despotic
authority.  There is besides another awkward trait in his character,
common to him with many other people of high rank.  Though he is very
fond of the people about him, he pays not the least attention to
their services, but lets them sink into years without a moment's
thought about securing them any provision.  If at any time he makes
them any little presents, they may thank the goodness of some one who
shall have spoken up in their behalf: he would never have his wits
enough about him to do the slightest thing for them as a volunteer.

This is just what the old valet-de-chambre told me of his master.
Next, he let me into what he thought of the clergymen with whom we
had dined.  His portraits might be likenesses; but they were too
hard-featured to be owned by the originals.  It must be admitted,
however, that he did not represent them as honest men, but only as
very scandalous priests.  Nevertheless, he made some exceptions, and
was as loud in their praises as in his censure of the others.  I was
no longer at any loss how to play my part so as to put myself on an
equal footing with these gentry.  That very, evening, at supper, I
took a leaf out of their book, and arrayed myself in the convenient
vesture of a wise and prudent outside.  A clothing of humility and
sanctification costs nothing.  Indeed it offers such a premium to the
wearer, that we are not to wonder if this world abounds in a
description of people called hypocrites.




_CHAPTER III._

_GIL BLAS BECOMES THE ARCHBISHOP'S FAVORITE, AND THE CHANNEL OF ALL
HIS FAVORS._

I had been after dinner to get together my baggage, and take my horse
from the inn where I had put up, and afterwards returned to supper at
the archbishop's palace, where a neatly-furnished room was got ready
for me, and such a bed as was more likely to pamper than to mortify
the flesh.  The day following, his grace sent for me quite as soon as
I was ready to go to him.  It was to give me a homily to transcribe.
He made a point of having it copied with all possible accuracy.  It
was done to please him; for I omitted neither accent, nor comma, nor
the minutest tittle of all he had marked down.  His satisfaction at
observing this was heightened by its being unexpected.  Eternal
Father! exclaimed he in a holy rapture, when he had glanced his eye
over all the folios of my copy, was ever any thing seen so correct?
You are too good a transcriber not to have some little smattering of
the grammarian.  Now tell me with the freedom of a friend: in writing
it over, have you been struck with nothing that grated upon your
feelings?  Some little careless idiom, or some word used in an
improper sense?  O! may it please your grace, answered I with a
modest air, it is not for me, with my confined education and coarse
taste, to aim at making critical remarks.  And though ever so well
qualified, I am satisfied that your grace's works would come out pure
from the essay.  The successor of the apostles smiled at my answer.
He made no observation on it; but it was easy to see through all his
piety that he was an arrant author at the bottom: there is something
in that dye that not heaven itself can wash out.

I seemed to have purchased the fee-simple of his good graces by my
flattery.  Day after day did I get a step farther in his esteem; and
Don Ferdinand, who came to see him very often, told me my footing was
so firm, that there could not be a doubt but my fortune was made.  Of
this my master himself gave me a proof some little time afterwards;
and the occasion was as follows: One evening in his closet he
rehearsed before me, with appropriate emphasis and action, a homily
which he was to deliver the next day in the cathedral.  He did not
content himself with asking me what I thought of it in the gross, but
insisted on my telling him what passages struck me most.  I had the
good fortune to pick out those which were nearest to his own taste,
his favorite common-places.  Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in
his estimation for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the
real and less obvious beauties in a work.  This, indeed, exclaimed
he, is what you may call having discernment and feeling in
perfection!  Well, well, my friend! it cannot be said of you,

  Bœotum in crasso jurares aëre natum.

In a word, he was so highly pleased with me, as to add, in a tone of
extraordinary emotion, Never mind, Gil Blas! henceforward take no
care about hereafter: I shall make it my business to place you among
the favored children of my bounty.  You have my best wishes; and to
prove to you that you have them, I shall take you into my inmost
confidence.

These words were no sooner out of his mouth, than I fell at his
grace's feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude.  I embraced his
elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as
a man on the high road to a very handsome fortune.  Yes, my child,
resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the
rapidity of my prostration, I mean to make you the receiver-general
of all my inmost ruminations.  Hearken attentively to what I am going
to say.  I have a great pleasure in preaching.  The Lord sheds a
blessing on my homilies; they sink deep into the hearts of sinners;
set up a glass in which vice sees its own image, and bring back many
from the paths of error into the high road of repentance.  What a
heavenly sight, when a miser, scared at the hideous picture drawn by
my eloquence of his avarice, opens his coffers to the poor and needy,
and dispenses the accumulated store with a liberal hand?  The
voluptuary, too, is snatched from the pleasures of the table;
ambition flies at my command to the wholesome discipline of the
monastic cell; while female frailty, tottering on the brink of ruin,
with one ear open to the siren voice of the seducer, and the other to
my saintly correctives, is restored to domestic happiness and the
approving smile of heaven, by the timely warnings of the pulpit.
These miraculous conversions, which happen almost every Sunday, ought
of themselves to goad me on in the career of saving souls.
Nevertheless, to conceal no part of my weakness from my monitor,
there is another reward on which my heart is intent, a reward which
the seraphic scrupulousness of my virtue to little purpose condemns
as too carnal; a literary reputation for a sublime and elegant style.
The honor of being handed down to posterity as a perfect pulpit
orator has its irresistible attractions.  My compositions are
generally thought to be equally powerful and persuasive; but I could
wish of all things to steer clear of the rock on which good authors
split, who are too long before the public, and to retire from
professional life with my reputation in undiminished lustre.

To this end, my dear Gil Blas, continued the prelate, there is one
thing requisite from your zeal and friendship.  Whenever it shall
strike you that my pen begins to contract, as it were, the
ossification of old age, whenever you see my genius in its
climacteric, do not fail to give me a hint.  There is no trusting to
one's self in such a case; pride and conceit were the original sin of
man.  The probe of criticism must be intrusted to an impartial
stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity.  Both those
requisites centre in you: you are my choice, and I give myself up to
your direction.  Heaven be praised, my lord, said I, there is no need
to trouble yourself with any such thoughts yet.  Besides, an
understanding of your grace's mould and calibre will last out double
the time of a common genius; or, to speak with more certainty and
truth, it will never be the worse for wear, if you live to the age of
Methusalem.  I consider you as a second Cardinal Ximenes, whose
powers, superior to decay, instead of flagging with years, seemed to
derive new vigor from their approximation with the heavenly regions.
No flattery, my friend! interrupted he.  I know myself to be in
danger of failing all at once.  At my age one begins to be sensible
of infirmities, and those of the body communicate with the mind.  I
repeat it to you, Gil Blas, as soon as you shall be of opinion that
my head is not so clear as usual, give me warning of it instantly.
Do not be afraid of offending by frankness and sincerity: to put me
in mind of my own frailty will be the strongest proof of your
affection for me.  Besides, your very interest is concerned in it,
for if it should, by any spite of chance towards you, come to my ears
that the people say in town, "His grace's sermons produce no longer
their accustomed impression; it is time for him to abandon his pulpit
to younger candidates," I do assure you, most seriously and solemnly,
you will lose not only my friendship, but the provision for life that
I have promised you.  Such will be the result of your silly tampering
with truth.

Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an echo of
his speech, and a promise of obeying him in all things.  From that
moment there were no secrets from me; I became the prime favorite.
All the household, except Melchior de la Ronda, looked at me with an
eye of envy.  It was curious to observe the manner in which the whole
establishment, from the highest to the lowest, thought it necessary
to demean themselves towards his grace's confidential secretary;
there was no meanness to which they would not stoop to curry favor
with me; I could scarcely believe they were Spaniards.  I left no
stone unturned to be of service to them, without being taken in by
their interested assiduities.  My lord archbishop, at my entreaty,
took them by the hand.  He got a company for one, and fitted him out
so as to make a handsome figure in the army.  Another he sent to
Mexico, with a considerable appointment which he procured him; and I
obtained a good slice of his bounty for my friend Melchior.  It was
evident, from these facts, that if the prelate was not particularly
active in good works, at least he rarely gave a churlish refusal,
when any one had the courage to importune him for his benevolence.

But what I did for a priest seems to deserve being noticed more at
large.  One day a certain licentiate, by name Lewis Garcias, a
well-looking man still in the prime of life, was presented to me by
our steward, who said, Signor Gil Blas, in this honest ecclesiastic
you behold one of my best friends.  He was formerly chaplain to a
nunnery.  Scandal has taken a few liberties with his chastity.
Malicious stories have been trumped up to hurt him in my lord
archbishop's opinion, who has suspended him, and unfortunately is so
strongly prejudiced by his enemies, as to be deaf to any petition in
his favor.  In vain have we interested the first people in Grenada to
get him reëstablished; our master will not hear of it.

These first people in Grenada, said I, have gone the wrong way to
work.  It would have been much better if no interest at all had been
made for the reverend licentiate.  People have only done him a
mischief by endeavoring to serve him.  I know my lord archbishop
thoroughly: entreaties and importunate recommendations do but
aggravate the ill condition of a clergyman who lies under his
displeasure: it is but a very short time ago since I heard him mutter
the following sentiment to himself.  The more persons a priest, who
has been guilty of any misconduct, engages to speak to me in his
behalf, the more widely is the scandal of the church disseminated,
and the more severe is my treatment of the offender.  That is very
unlucky, replied the steward; and my friend would be put to his last
shifts if he did not write a good hand.  But, happily, he has the pen
of a ready scribe, and keeps his head above water by the exercise of
that talent.  I was curious to see whether this boasted handwriting
was so much better than my own.  The licentiate, who had a specimen
in his pocket, showed me a sheet which I admired very much: it had
all the regularity of a writing-master's copy.  In looking over this
model of penmanship, an idea occurred to me.  I begged Garcias to
leave this paper in my hands, saying that I might be able to do
something with it which should turn out to his advantage; that I
could not explain myself at that moment, but would tell him more the
next day.  The licentiate, to whom the steward had evidently talked
big about my capacity to serve him, withdrew in as good spirits as if
he had already been restored to his functions.

I was in earnest in my endeavor that he should be so, and lost no
time in setting to work.  Happening to be alone with the archbishop,
I produced the specimen.  My patron was delighted with it.  Seizing
on this favorable opportunity, May it please your grace, said I,
since you are determined not to put your homilies to the press, I
should very much like them at least to be transcribed in this
masterly manner.

I am very well satisfied with your performance, answered the prelate;
but yet I own that it would be a pleasant thing enough to have a copy
of my works in that hand.  Your grace, replied I, has only to signify
your wishes.  The man who copies so well is a licentiate of my
acquaintance.  It will give him so much the more pleasure to gratify
you, as it may be the means of interesting your goodness to extricate
him from the melancholy situation to which he has the misfortune at
present to be reduced.

The prelate could not do otherwise than inquire the name of this
licentiate.  I told him it was Lewis Garcias.  He is in despair at
having drawn down your censure upon him.  That Garcias, interrupted
he, if I am not mistaken, was chaplain in a convent of nuns, and has
been brought into the ecclesiastical court as a delinquent.  I
recollect some very heavy charges which have been sent me against
him.  His morals are not the most exemplary.  May it please your
grace, interrupted I in my turn, it is not for me to justify him in
all points; but I know that he has enemies.  He maintains that the
authors of the informations you have received are more bent on doing
him an ill office than on vindicating the purity of religion.  That
very possibly may be the case, replied the archbishop; there are a
great many firebrands in the world.  Besides, though we should take
it for granted that his conduct has not always been above suspicion,
he may have repented of his sins; in short, the mercies of heaven are
infinite, however heinous our transgressions.  Bring that licentiate
before me; I take off his suspension.

Thus it is that men of the most austere character descend from their
altitudes when interest or a favorite whim reduces them to the level
of the frail.  The archbishop granted, without a struggle, to the
empty vanity of having his works well copied, what he had refused to
the most respectable applications.  I carried the news with all
possible expedition to the steward, who communicated it to his friend
Garcias.  That licentiate, on the following day, came to return me
thanks commensurate with the favor obtained.  I presented him to my
master, who contented himself with giving him a slight reprimand, and
put the homilies into his hand, to copy them out fair.  Garcias
performed the task so satisfactorily, that he was reinstated in the
cure of souls, and was afterwards preferred to the living of Gabia, a
large market town in the neighborhood of Grenada.




_CHAPTER IV._

_THE ARCHBISHOP IS AFFLICTED WITH A STROKE OF APOPLEXY.  HOW GIL BLAS
GETS INTO A DILEMMA, AND HOW HE GETS OUT._

While I was thus rendering myself a blessing first to one and then to
the other, Don Ferdinand de Leyva was making his arrangements for
leaving Grenada.  I called on that nobleman before his departure, to
thank him once more for the advantageous post he had procured me.  My
expressions of satisfaction were so lively, that he said, My dear Gil
Blas, I am delighted to find you in such good humor with my uncle the
archbishop.  I am absolutely in love with him, answered I.  His
goodness to me has been such as I can never sufficiently acknowledge.
Less than my present happiness could never have made me amends for
being at so great a distance from Don Cæsar and his son.  I am
persuaded, replied he, that they are both of them equally chagrined
at having lost you.  But possibly you are not separated forever;
fortune may some day bring you together again.  I could not hear such
an idea started without being moved by it.  My sighs would find vent;
and I felt at that moment so strong an affection for Don Alphonso,
that I could willingly have turned my back on the archbishop and all
the fine prospects that were opening to me, and have gone back to the
castle of Leyva, had but a mortification taken place in the back of
the scarecrow which had frightened me away.  Don Ferdinand was not
insensible to the emotions that agitated me, and felt himself so much
obliged by them, that he took his leave with the assurance of the
whole family always taking an anxious interest in my fate.

Two months after this worthy gentleman had left us, in the luxuriant
harvest of my highest favor, a lowering storm came suddenly over the
episcopal palace; the archbishop had a stroke of apoplexy.  By dint
of immediate applications and good nursing, in a few days there was
no bodily appearance of disease remaining.  But his reverend
intellects did not so easily recover from their lethargy.  I could
not help observing it to myself in the very first discourse that he
composed.  Yet there was not such a wide gap between the merits of
the present and the former ones as to warrant the inference that the
sun of oratory was many degrees advanced in its post-meridian course.
A second homily was worth waiting for, because that would clearly
determine the line of my conduct.  Alas, and well-a-day! when that
second homily came, it was a knock-down argument.  Sometimes the good
prelate moved forward, and sometimes he moved backwards; sometimes he
mounted up into the garret, and sometimes dipped down into the
cellar.  It was a composition of more sound than meaning, something
like a superannuated schoolmaster's theme, when he attempts to give
his boys more sense than he possesses of his own, or like a
capuchin's sermon, which only scatters a few artificial flowers of
paltry rhetoric over a barren desert of doctrine.

I was not the only person whom the alteration struck.  The audience
at large, when he delivered it, as if they too had been pledged to
watch the advances of dotage, said to one another in a whisper all
round the church, Here is a sermon with symptoms of apoplexy in every
paragraph.  Come, my good Coryphæus of the public taste in homilies,
said I then to myself, prepare to do your office.  You see that my
lord archbishop is going very fast--you ought to warn him of it, not
only as his bosom friend, on whose sincerity he relies, but lest some
blunt fellow should anticipate you, and bolt out the truth in an
offensive manner, in that case you know the consequence; you would be
struck out of his will, where, no doubt, you have a more convertible
bequest than the licentiate Sedillo's library.

But as reason, like Janus, looks at things with two faces, I began to
consider the other side of the question; the hint seemed difficult to
wrap up so as to make it palatable.  Authors in general are stark mad
on the subject of their own works, and such an author might be more
testy than the common herd of the irritable race; but that suspicion
seemed illiberal on my part, for it was impossible that my freedom
should be taken amiss when it had been forced upon me by so positive
an injunction.  Add to this, that I reckoned upon handling the
subject skilfully, and cramming discretion down his throat like a
high-seasoned epicurean dish.  After all my pro and con, finding that
I risked more by keeping silence than by breaking it, I determined to
venture on the delicate duty of speaking my mind.

Now there was but one difficulty; a difficulty indeed! how to open
the business.  Luckily the orator himself extricated me from that
embarrassment, by asking what they said of him in the world at large,
and whether people were tolerably well pleased with his last
discourse.  I answered that there could be but one opinion about his
homilies; but that it should seem as if the last had not quite struck
home to the hearts of the audience, like those which had gone before.
Do you really mean what you say, my friend? replied he, with a sort
of wriggling surprise.  Then my congregation are more in the temper
of Aristarchus than of Longinus!  No, may it please your grace,
rejoined I, quite the contrary.  Performances of that order are above
the reach of vulgar criticism: there is not a soul but expects to be
saved by their influence.  Nevertheless, since you have made it my
duty to be sincere and unreserved, I shall take the liberty of just
stating that your last discourse is not written with quite the
overpowering eloquence and conclusive argument of your former ones.
Does not your grace feel just as I do on the subject?

This ignorant and stupid frankness of mine completely blanched my
master's cheek; but he forced a fretful smile, and said, Then, good
Master Gil Blas, that piece does not exactly hit your fancy?  I did
not mean to say that, your grace, interrupted I, looking very
foolish.  It is very far superior to what any one else could produce,
though a little below par with respect to your own works in general.
I know what you mean, replied he.  You think I am going down hill, do
not you?  Out with it at once.  It is your opinion that it is time
for me to think of retiring?  I should never have had the
presumption, said I, to deliver myself with so little reserve, if it
had not been your grace's express command.  I act in entire obedience
to your grace's orders; and I most obsequiously implore your grace
not to take offence at my boldness.  I were unfit to live in a
Christian land, interrupted he, with stammering impatience,--I were
unfit to live in a Christian land if I liked you the less for such a
Christian virtue as sincerity.  A man who does not love sincerity
sets his face against the distinguishing mark between a friend and a
flatterer.  I should have given you infinite credit for speaking what
you thought, if you had thought any thing that deserved to be spoken.
I have been finely taken in by your outside show of cleverness,
without any solid foundation of sober judgment!

Though completely unhorsed, and at the enemy's mercy, I wanted to
make terms of decent capitulation, and to go unmolested into winter
quarters; but let those who think to appease an exasperated author,
and especially an author whose ear has been long attuned to the music
of his own praises, take warning by my fate.  Let us talk no more on
the subject, my very young friend, said he.  You are as yet scarcely
in the rudiments of good taste, and utterly incompetent to
distinguish between gold and tinsel.  You are yet to learn that I
never in all my life composed a finer homily than that unfortunate
one which had not the honor of your approbation.  The immortal part
of me, by the blessing of heaven on me and my congregation, is less
weighed down by human infirmity than when the flesh was stronger.  We
all grow wiser as we grow older, and I shall in future select the
people about me with more caution; nor submit the castigation of my
works but to a much abler critic than yourself.  Get about your
business! pursued he, giving me an angry shove by the shoulders out
of his closet; go and tell my treasurer to pay you a hundred ducats,
and take my priestly blessing in addition to that sum.  God speed
you, good Master Gil Blas!  I heartily pray that you may do well in
the world!  There is nothing to stand in your way but the want of a
little better taste.




_CHAPTER V._

_THE COURSE WHICH GIL BLAS TOOK AFTER THE ARCHBISHOP HAD GIVEN HIM
HIS DISMISSAL.  HIS ACCIDENTAL MEETING WITH THE LICENTIATE WHO WAS SO
DEEPLY IN HIS DEBT, AND A PICTURE OF GRATITUDE IN THE PERSON OF A
PARSON._

I made the best of my way out of the closet, cursing the caprice, or
more properly the dotage, of the archbishop, and more in dudgeon at
his absurdity, than cast down at the loss of his good graces.  For
some time it was a moot point whether I should go and lay claim to my
hundred ducats; but after having weighed the matter dispassionately,
I was not such a fool as to quarrel with my bread and butter.  There
was no reason why that money, fairly earned, should deprive me of my
natural right to make a joke of this ridiculous prelate; in which
good deed I promised myself not to be wanting, as often as himself or
his homilies were brought upon the carpet in my hearing.

I went therefore and asked the treasurer for a hundred ducats,
without telling a word about the literary warfare between his master
and me.  Afterwards I called on Melchior de la Ronda, to take a long
leave of him.  He was too much my friend not to sympathize with my
misfortune.  While I was telling my story, vexation was strongly
imprinted on his countenance.  In spite of all his respect for the
archbishop, he could not help blaming him; but, when in the fever of
my resentment I threatened to be a match for the prelate, and to
entertain the whole city at his expense, the prudent Melchior gave me
a salutary caution: Take my advice, my dear Gil Blas, and rather
pocket the affront.  Men of a lower sphere in life should always be
cap in hand to people of quality, whatever may be their grounds of
complaint.  It must be admitted there are some very coarse specimens
of greatness, which in themselves are scarcely deserving of the least
respect or attention; but even such animals have their weapons of
annoyance, and it is best to keep out of their way.

I thanked the old valet-de-chambre for the good counsel he had given
me, and promised to be guided by it.  Pleased with my deference to
his opinion, he said to me, If you go to Madrid, be sure you call
upon my nephew, Joseph Navarro.  He is factotum in the family of
Signor Don Balthazar de Zunigna, and I can venture to recommend him
as a lad in every respect worthy of your friendship.  He is just as
nature made him, with all the vivacity of youth, courteous in his
manners, and forward to oblige; I could wish you to get acquainted
with him.  I answered that I would not fail to go and see this Joseph
Navarro as soon as I should get to Madrid, whither I meant to return
in due time.  Then did I turn my back on the episcopal palace, never
to grace it with my presence again.  If I had kept my horse, I should
perhaps have set out for Toledo immediately; but I had sold it during
the period of my administration, supposing that I was in office for
life, and should not henceforward be migratory.  My final resolution
was to hire a ready-furnished lodging, as I had made up my mind to
stay another month in Grenada, and then to pay the Count de Polan a
visit.

As dinner-hour was drawing nigh, I asked my landlady if there was any
eating-house in the neighborhood.  She answered that there was a very
good one within a few yards of her house, where the accommodations
were excellent, and the company select and numerous.  I made her show
me where it was, and went thither sharp set.  I was shown into a
large room, resembling the hall of a monastery in every thing but
good cheer.  There were ten or a dozen men sitting at a long table,
with a cloth spread over it that fretted in its own grease; but they,
with unoffended nostrils, were engaged in general conversation,
though they dined individually, each having a miserable scrap for his
portion.  The people of the house brought me my allowance, which at
another time would have turned my stomach, and have made me sigh
after the luxuries of the table I had just lost.  But at this moment
I was so indignant against the archbishop, that the homely fare of a
paltry eating-house seemed more palatable than the dainties of his
sumptuous board.  It was a burning shame to see such a waste of
provisions served up in soups and sauces to pamper the appetite.
Arguing like a deep examiner in the economy of the human frame, and
reasoning medically as well as philosophically on the disproportion
between the simple wants of nature and the complexity of luxurious
indulgence, Cursed be they, said I, who invented those pernicious
dinners and suppers, where one must sit on the tenterhooks of
self-denial, for fear of overloading the storehouse and shop of the
whole body!  Man wants but little here below; and provided he can but
keep body and soul together, the less he eats, the better.  Thus did
I, in my surly vein, give utterance to wise saws; which, however just
in theory, had hitherto been little recommended by my practice.

While I was despatching my commons, without any danger of a surfeit
from repletion, the licentiate Lewis Garcias, who had got the living
of Gabia in the manner above mentioned, came into the room.  The
moment he recognized me, he ran into my arms with all the cordiality
of friendship, or rather with the extravagant joy of a lover after a
long exile from his mistress.  He folded me repeatedly within his
sincere embrace, and I was compelled to stand the brunt of a
long-winded compliment on the unparalleled disinterestedness of my
conduct towards him.  Gratitude is a fine virtue; and yet it is
wearisome when carried beyond due bounds.  He took his seat next me,
saying, Well! a parson must not swear; though, by the mass, my dear
patron, since my good fortune has thrown me in your way, we will not
part without a jovial glass.  But as there is no good wine in this
shabby inn, I will take you, if you please, after our make-shift
dinner, to a place where I will treat you with a couple of bottles,
rich, genuine, and old, in comparison of which the Falernian of
Horace was all a farce.  The church will give us absolution, in the
cause of gratitude!  If I could but get you for a few days down at my
parsonage of Gabia!  Mæcenas was never more welcome to the poet's
Sabine farm, than the author of all my ease and comfort to the
choicest produce of a glebe which is mine only by your benevolence.

While he was holding this high-flown language, his little slice of
dinner was set before him.  He fell to without the fear of
indigestion before his eyes, still heightening the luxury of the
repast, at intervals, by fine speeches addressed to me in the most
fulsome style of flattery.  I took the opportunity, when his mouth
was filled with something more substantial, to edge in a word or two
amidst the torrent; and as he had not forgotten to ask after his
friend the steward, I made no bones about acknowledging that I was no
longer a hanger-on of the church.  I even went so far as to
particularize the most trivial circumstances attending my
resignation, to all of which he listened with an attentive ear.
After all his fine professions, who would not have expected to see
him moved even to tears with the throes of resentful gratitude, to
hear him thunder bulls and interdicts against the superannuated
archbishop?  The devil a bit! he did neither the one thing nor the
other.  But his countenance fell, and his whole air was that of an
absent man; the rest of his dinner was bolted down without the
garnish of intermediate talk about Mæcenas; as soon as he had done,
he hurried from table without minding grace or gratitude, wished me
good day with a cold and distant air, and got off as fast as
possible.  The unfeeling scoundrel, perceiving that I was no longer
in a situation for him to pump anything out of me, would not even
take the trouble to draw a decent veil over his dirty principles.
But such a blackguard could excite no other sensation than contempt
and laughter.  Looking at him with derision, the fittest chastisement
for fellows like these, I called after him, loud enough to be heard
by the whole room, Stop there, you nun's priest!  Go and put those
two bottles in ice against Mæcenas comes to the Sabine farm!  Be sure
they are rich, genuine, and old, or they will be a farce to Falernian.




_CHAPTER VI._

_GIL BLAS GOES TO THE PLAY AT GRENADA.  HIS SURPRISE AT SEEING ONE OF
THE ACTRESSES, AND WHAT HAPPENED THEREUPON._

No sooner had Garcias rid the room of his presence, than two
gentlemen came in, extremely well dressed, and took their seats close
by me.  They began talking about the players of the Grenada company,
and about a new piece which just then had a great run.  According to
their account, it was quite the town talk.  Nothing would do for me
but to go and see it that very day.  I had never been at the play
since my residence at Grenada.  As I had lived nearly the whole time
in the archbishop's palace, where all such profane shows were
condemned as uncanonical, I had been cut off from every recreation of
that sort.  All my knowledge of men and manners was drawn from
homilies!

I repaired, therefore, to the theatre at the appointed hour, and
found a very full house.  All around me, discussions were going on
about the piece before the curtain drew up; and there was not a soul
in the numerous assembly but had some remark to make upon it.  One
liked it, another could not bear it.  Do not you think the dialogue
is particularly happy? said a candid critic on my right.  Was there
ever such miserable stuff! cried a snarling critic on my left.  In
good truth, if bad authors abound, it must be admitted that the
public are at variance about what is good and what is bad: but the
bad judges have a right to be pleased for their money; and as they
far outnumber the good ones, their favorite writers can never want
employment.  When one only considers through what an ordeal dramatic
poets have to pass, it is a matter of wonder that any should be found
hardy enough at once to contend against the ignorance of the
multitude, and the random shot of those self-created guides in
matters of taste, who always pretend to lead the blindness of the
public judgment, and too frequently push it into the mire of
absurdity.

At length the buffoon of the piece came forward by way of prologue.
As soon as his grotesque countenance was visible, there was a general
clapping of hands; a sure indication of his being one of those
spoiled actors who are allowed to take any liberties with the pit,
and to be applauded through thick and thin.  In fact, this player
neither opened his lips, nor moved a muscle, without exciting the
most extravagant raptures.  He would have performed better had he
been less conscious what a favorite he was.  But he presumed on that
circumstance most abominably.  I observed that he sometimes forgot
what was set down for him, and took the license of adding to his part
out of his own free fancy; a common cause of complaint against low
comedians, which, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make
the judicious grieve.  Would the audience but receive such mirth with
hisses, instead of crying bravo, they might restrain the absurd
practice, and purge the stage from barbarism.

Some of the other performers were greeted with the usual tokens on
their entrance, and particularly an actress who played the
chambermaid.  There was something about her which more than usually
attracted my attention; and language must sink under the labor of
expressing my astonishment at tracing the features of Laura, that
fair, that chaste, that inexpressible she, whom I supposed to be
still at Madrid, warbling in one key, with hands, sides, voice, and
mind incorporate with Arsenia.  But there could be no doubt of her
identity.  The kick in her gallop, the leer in her eye, and the
tripping pertness of her tongue, all conspired in evidence that there
could be no mistake.  Yet, as if I had refused belief to the
affidavit of my own eyes and ears, I asked her name of a gentleman
who was sitting beside me.  What the deuce!  Why, where do you come
from? said he.  You must unquestionably be a new importation, not to
have seen or heard of the divine Estella.

The likeness was too perfect for me to be mistaken.  It was easy to
comprehend why Laura, changing her sphere of action, changed her name
also; wherefore, from curiosity to know how matters stood with her,
since the public always pry into the most private concerns of
theatrical persons, I inquired of the same man whether this Estella
had any particular affair of gallantry on her hands.  He informed me
that for the last two months there had been a great Portuguese
nobleman at Grenada,--his name was the Marquis de Marialva,--who had
laid out a great deal of money upon her.  He might have told me more,
if I had not been afraid of becoming troublesome with my questions.
I was better employed in musing on the information this good
gentleman had given me than in attending to the play; and if any one
had asked me what it was all about, when the piece was over, I should
have been puzzled for an answer.  I could do nothing but decline
Laura and Estella through all cases and numbers, till at length I
boldly made up my mind to call at her house the next day.  Not but
there was some risk as to the reception she might give me: it might
be suspected, without excess of modesty, that my appearance would
give her no great pleasure in the high tide of her affairs; nor was
it at all improbable that so good an actress, to revenge herself on a
man with whom certainly she had an account to settle, might look
strange, and swear she had never seen his face before.  Yet did none
of these apprehensions deter me from my venture.  After a light
supper,--for all the meals at my eating-house were regulated on
principles of economy and temperance,--I withdrew to my chamber with
an anxious longing for the next day.

My sleep was short and interrupted, so that I got up by daybreak.
But as it was to be recollected that a mistress in high keep was not
likely to be visible early in the morning, I passed three or four
hours in dressing, shaving, powdering, and perfuming.  It was my
business to present myself before her in a trim not to put her to the
blush at acknowledging my acquaintance.  I sallied forth about ten
o'clock, and knocked at her door, after having inquired her address
at the theatre.  She was living on the first floor of a large and
elegant house.  I told a chambermaid, who opened the door to me, that
a young man wanted to speak with her lady.  The chambermaid went in
to give my message, when all at once I heard her mistress call out,
not in the best-tempered tone in the world, Who is the young man?
What does he want?  Show him up stairs.

This was a hint to me that my time was ill chosen; that probably her
Portuguese lover was at her toilet, and that she spoke so loud with
the laudable design of convincing him that she was not a sort of girl
to allow of any impertinent intruders.  This conjecture of mine
turned out to be the fact; the Marquis de Marialva lounged away
almost every morning with her; I had made up my mind to be kicked
down stairs by way of welcome; but that admirable actress, never
forgetting her cue, ran forward with open arms at the sight of me,
exclaiming, Ah! my dear brother, is it you that I behold?  On the
strength of so near a kindred, she was no niggard of her embraces,
but recollected herself so far as to say, turning round to the
Portuguese, My lord, you must excuse me if nature will put in her
claim, and trench upon good breeding.  After three years of absence,
I cannot see a brother once again, whom I love so tenderly, without
expressing my feelings in all their warmth.  Come! my dear Gil Blas,
continued she, addressing me afresh, tell me some news of the family:
in what circumstances did you leave it?

This whimsical scene disconcerted me at first, but I was not long in
seeing through Laura's intention, and playing up to her with a spirit
scarcely less than her own, answered, according to the plot, Heaven
be praised, sister, all our good folks are in perfect health, and
well in the world.  I make no doubt, resumed she, but you must be
very much surprised to find me an actress in Grenada; but hear me
first, and blame me afterwards.  It is three years, as you may
recollect, since my father thought to have established me
advantageously in marriage with Don Antonio Cœllo, an officer in
the service, who took me from the Asturias to Madrid, his native
place.  Six months after our arrival, he got into an affair of honor
in consequence of his violent temper.  Some attentions incautiously
paid to me were the cause of the affray, and his antagonist was
killed.  This gentleman was of a family high in rank and interest.
My husband, who, though well born, had very few connections, made his
escape into Catalonia with every thing he could get together in
jewels and ready money.  He embarked at Barcelona, went over into
Italy, enlisted in the Venetian service, and finally lost his life in
the Morea, fighting against the Turks.  In the mean time, a landed
estate which constituted our whole revenue was confiscated, and I was
left a widow with very little for my support.  What was to be done in
so pressing an emergency?  There was nothing left to pay my
travelling expenses back into the Asturias.  And then what should I
have done there?  I should have got nothing from my family but a long
string of condolences, which would have furnished me neither with
food nor with raiment.  On the other hand, I had been too well
brought up to fall into those courses, into which too many poor young
women are betrayed for the sake of a scandalous subsistence.  There
was but one thing remaining for me to determine on.  I turned actress
to preserve my morals.

So tingling a sense of ridicule came over me when Laura wound up her
romance with this pious motive for turning actress, that I could
scarcely refrain from relieving myself by a fit of laughter.  But
gravity was of too much consequence to be dispensed with, and I said
to her with an air the counterpart of her own, My dear sister, I
entirely approve of your conduct, and am heartily glad to meet with
you at Grenada, and moreover settled on so respectable a footing.

The Marquis de Marialva, who had not lost a word of all these fine
speeches, swallowed down blindfold whatever Don Antonio's widow
thought fit to drench his credulity with.  He took part in the
conversation too, and asked me whether I had any fixed employment in
Grenada or elsewhere.  I paused for a moment to consider whether and
after what manner I should lie; but as there seemed no need in this
case to draw on my invention, I told the truth by way of variety.  In
a plain, matter-of-fact manner did I rehearse my introduction to the
archbishop's palace, and my discharge therefrom, to the infinite
amusement of his Portuguese lordship.  To be sure, in telling the
truth, I did not keep my word, for I could not help launching out a
little at the archbishop's expense, in spite of my solemn promise
given to Melchior.  But the best of the joke was, that Laura, taking
my story for a fiction invented after her example, burst out into
peals of laughter; whereas the whimsicality of the circumstance would
have raised a soberer mirth, had she known it to have been alloyed
with the base ingredient of veracity.

After having come to the end of my tale, which closed with just
mentioning the lodging I had taken, dinner was announced.  I
instantly motioned to withdraw, as if intending to take that frugal
meal at home; but Laura would not hear of it.  Do you mean to affront
me, brother? said she.  You must dine here.  Indeed I cannot think of
your staying any longer at a paltry inn.  You must positively board
and lodge in my house.  Send your trunks hither this very evening;
there is a spare bed for you.

His Portuguese lordship, possibly not altogether relishing this
excess of hospitality even to a brother, then interfered between us,
and said to Laura, No, Estella, you have not sufficient accommodation
to give him a bed without inconvenience.  Your brother seems to be a
clever young fellow, and the circumstance of his being so nearly
related to you gives him a strong claim on my kindness.  He shall be
put at once upon my establishment.  I am in want of a secretary, and
shall delight in giving him the appointment; he shall be my
right-hand man.  Let him be sure to come and sleep at my house this
very night; I will order a room to be got ready for him.  I will fix
his regular salary at four hundred ducats; and if, on better
acquaintance, I have reason, as I trust I shall, to be satisfied with
him, I will place him in a situation to laugh at the consequences of
having been a little too plain-spoken with his patron the archbishop.

My acknowledgments to the marquis for this high honor were followed
by those of Laura, who far exceeded me in powers of panegyric.  Let
us drop the subject, interrupted he; it is a settled point.  Settled
as it was, he confirmed the contract on the lips of his green-room
Dulcinea, and went his way.  She immediately pulled me by the arm
into a closet, where, secure from interruption, she cried out, Cut my
laces!  I shall burst if I do not give way at once to the fit of
laughter that is coming over me.  And so she probably would; for she
threw herself into an arm-chair, and holding both her sides, shouted
out her convulsive peal of mirth like a mad woman.  It was impossible
for me to refrain from following her example.  When we had exhausted
our risible propensities, Own, Gil Blas, said she, that we have just
been acting a very humorous farce.  But I did not look for the
concluding scene.  My only thought was to secure you board and
lodging under my own roof; and there was no other possibility of
making the proposition in a modest way but by passing you off for my
brother.  But I am heartily glad that the chapter of accidents has
opened with so good a berth for you.  The Marquis de Marialva is a
nobleman of liberal and honorable sentiments, who will be better than
his word in what he does for you.  But confess now!  There is
scarcely a woman in existence except myself, would have given so
coming-on a reception to a fellow who shirks his friends without
saying with your leave or by your leave.  I, however, am one of those
simple-hearted girls, who are glad to receive back again the base man
they have once loved, though he should have offended and repented
seven, or even seven thousand times.

The best way for me was to acknowledge the extreme ill-breeding of
which I had been guilty, to blush and beg pardon once for all.  After
this explanation, she led the way to a very handsome dining-room.  We
placed ourselves at table, where, having a chambermaid and a footboy
for eye-witnesses, we kept within the bounds of brother and sister.
When we had done dinner, we went back again into the same closet
where we had been conversing before.  Having our time to ourselves,
my paragon of a Laura, giving herself up to her natural love of
merriment, and to her no less natural curiosity, required from me a
faithful and true narrative of all my pros and cons, my ins and outs,
since that unmannerly separation of ours.  I gave her a full and
particular account; nothing extenuating on my own behalf, nor setting
down aught in malice on the other side.  When I had quenched her
thirst after a story, she slaked mine, by communicating the
particulars of her eventful life to the following effect.




_CHAPTER VII._

_LAURA'S STORY._

I shall just run over to you, as briefly as possible, the
circumstances which led me to embrace the theatrical profession.

After you took French leave, so much to your credit, great events
happened.  My mistress Arsenia, more surfeited with a glut of
pleasures than scandalized at their immorality, renounced the stage,
and took me with her to a fine estate which she had just purchased in
the neighborhood of Zenora with the wages of her sinful life.  We
soon got acquainted in the town.  Our visits there were very
frequent, and sometimes for a day or two together.  With the
exception of these little excursions, we were as closely domesticated
as probationers in a nunnery, and almost as piously employed.

On one of our high days and holidays, Don Felix Maldonado, the
corregidor's only son, saw me by chance, and took a liking to me.  He
soon found an opportunity of speaking with me in private; and, as it
is in vain to affect modesty before one who knows me so well, there
was some little contrivance of my own to bring the interview about.
The young gentleman was not twenty years of age; the very picture of
Venus's sweetheart, or Venus's sweetheart the very picture of him,
with a form for a sculptor to work from; with an address so elegant,
and with sentiments so generous, as to throw even his personal graces
into the background.  There was such a winning way with him, so
pressing an earnestness to prevail, when he took a large diamond from
his own finger, and slid it upon mine, that it would have been quite
brutal not to have let it stay there.  It was really something like
sentiment that I began to entertain towards a swain of so interesting
a character.  But what an absurd thing it is for wenches of a certain
sort to hook themselves upon young men of family, when their surly
fathers hold official situations!  The corregidor, who had scarcely
his equal in the whole tribe of corregidors, got wind of our
correspondence, and determined to close it in a summary manner.  He
sent a host of alguazils to take me into custody, who dragged me
away, in spite of my cries and tears, to the house of correction for
female penitents.

There, without bill of indictment or form of trial, the lady abbess
ordered me to be stripped of my ring and my clothes, and to be
dressed in the habit of the institution,--a long gown of gray serge
tied about the middle with a strap of black leather, whence depended
a rosary with large beads swinging down to my heels.  After this
pleasant reception, they took me into a hall, where there was an old
monk,--the deuce knows of what order,--who set to work preaching up
repentance and resignation, pretty much in the same strain as Dame
Leonarda, when she exhorted you to patience in the subterraneous
cavern.  He told me that I was excessively obliged indeed to those
good people who had so kindly shut me up, and could never thank them
sufficiently for their good deed in rescuing me from the harpy talons
of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  But I must frankly own that
all my other sins were pressed down and heaped high with ingratitude:
far from overflowing with the milk of human kindness towards those
who had conferred such a favor upon me, I abused them in terms that
would have put any dictionary to the blush.

Eight days thus passed in this wilderness of desolation; but on the
ninth--for I had notched the hours and even the minutes on a
stick--my fate seemed beginning to take another turn.  Crossing a
little court, I met the house steward, a personage whose will was
absolute; yes, the lady abbess herself was obedient to his will.  He
rendered an account of his stewardship to none but the corregidor, on
whom alone he was dependent, and whose confidence in him was
unbounded.  His name was Pedro Zendono, and the town of Salsedon in
Biscay laid claim to the honor of his birth.  Figure to yourself a
tall man, with the complexion of a mummy and the bare anatomy of a
dealer in mortification; he might have sat for the penitent thief in
a picture of the crucifixion.  He scarcely ever cast a carnal glance
towards us Magdalens.  You never saw such a face of rank hypocrisy in
all your life, though you have spent some part of it under the same
roof with the archbishop, and are not unacquainted with the clergy of
his diocese.

But to return from this digression; ... I met this Signor Zendono,
who said to me slyly as he passed, Take comfort, my girl; I am
sensibly affected with your wretched case.  He said no more, and went
on his way, leaving me to make my own comments on so concise and
general a text.  As he looked like a good man, and there was no
positive evidence to set against his looks, I was simpleton enough to
fancy that he had taken the trouble of inquiring why I was shut up,
and meant, not finding me so atrocious a culprit as to deserve such
shameful insults, to take my part with the corregidor.  But I was not
up to the tricks of the Biscayan; he had a much longer head.  He was
turning over in his mind the scheme of an elopement, and made the
proposal to me in profound privacy some days afterwards.  My dear
Laura, said he, your sufferings have taken such deep possession of my
mind that I have determined to end them.  I am perfectly aware that
my own ruin is involved in the measure, but needs must when the
tender passion drives.  To-morrow morning do I intend to take you out
of prison, and conduct you in person to Madrid.  No sacrifice is too
great for the pleasure of being your deliverer.

I was very near fainting with surprise and joy at this promise of
Zendono, who, concluding from my acknowledgments that my very life
depended on my rescue, had the effrontery to carry me off next day in
the face of the whole town, by the following device: He told the lady
abbess that he had orders to take me before the corregidor, who was
at his country box a few miles off; and, without betraying himself by
a single change of countenance, packed me off with him for my
companion, in a post-chaise drawn by two good mules, which he had
bought for the occasion.  Our only attendant was the driver, a
servant of his own, and entirely devoted to the steward by stronger
ties than those of gratitude.  We began bowling away, not in the
direction of Madrid, as I had taken for granted, but towards the
frontiers of Portugal, whither we got in less time than it took the
corregidor of Zamora to receive the deposition of our flight, and
uncouple his pack or set them barking at our heels.

Before we entered Braganza, the Biscayan made me put on man's
clothes, with which he had taken the precaution of providing himself.
Reckoning on me as being fairly launched in the same boat with him,
he said to me in the inn where we put up, Lovely Laura, do not take
it unkindly of me to have brought you into Portugal.  The corregidor
of Zamora will make our own country too hot to hold us, for in his
eyes we are two criminals, under the weight of whose enormities it is
not for Spain to groan.  But we may set his malice at defiance in
this distant realm, though at the present conjuncture under the
dominion of the Spanish monarchy.  At least we shall stand a better
chance for safety here than at home.  League your fortunes with those
of a man who would follow you in prosperity or in adversity through
the world.  Let us fix our residence at Coimbra.  There I will get
employed as a spy for the Inquisition; under the cover of that
formidable tribunal--a refreshing shade for us, but Cimmerian
darkness to its victims--our days will glide smoothly on in ease and
pleasure, and we shall fatten on the spoil of religious delinquency.

A proposal so much to the point gave me to understand that I had to
do with a knight who had other motives for officiating as the
guardian of distressed damsels, besides the honor of chivalry.  I saw
at once that he reckoned much on my gratitude, and still more on my
distress.  Nevertheless, though these two pleas were almost equally
eloquent in his favor, I rejected his addresses with disdain.  The
reason was that there were two advocates still more eloquent on the
side of a refusal--a certainty that he was disagreeable, and a strong
suspicion that he was poor.  But when he returned to the charge, and
offered to say the grace of matrimony before he fell to, proving to
me at the same time, by the undeniable evidence of cash in hand, that
his stewardship had enabled him to live in clover for a long time to
come, the truth must come out in spite of blushes; my heart was
softened, and my ears unstopped.  I was dazzled by the gold and
jewels which he laid out in burning row before me, and became a
living monument, in my own person, that miraculous transformations
are effected by the power of pelf, as well as by the wand of love.
My Biscayan became, by little and little, quite another sort of man
in my eyes.  His tall body and bare bones were plumped up into a
shapely and commanding figure; his cadaverous complexion was improved
into a manly brown; even that look, as if butter would not melt in
his mouth, was no longer hypocrisy, but a staid and decent aspect.
Having made these discoveries, I accepted his hand without any
material abhorrence, and he plighted the usual vows in all due form.
After this, like a good wife, I kept the spirit of contradiction as
much as possible under the hatches.  We resumed our journey, and
Coimbra soon received a new family within its walls.

My husband stocked my wardrobe as became my sex and station, making
me a present of several diamonds, among which I fixed my eye on that
of Don Felix Maldonado.  There were no further documents wanting to
give a shrewd guess whence came all the precious stones I had seen,
and to be morally certain that I had not married a troublesomely nice
observer of the eighth article in the decalogue.  Yet, considering
myself as the main spring of all his little deviations from the
strict law of propriety, it was not for me to judge harshly on that
point.  A woman can always find a palliation for the misdeeds which
are set in motion by the power of her own beauty.  But for that, he
certainly would have ranked no higher than one of the wicked in my
estimation.

I had no great reason to complain of him for two or three months.
His attentions were always polite and kind, amounting apparently to a
sincere and tender affection.  But no such thing!  These proofs of
wedded love, this worshipping with the body, and endowing with the
worldly goods, were all but a copy of his countenance; for the
cheating fellow meant, as men serve a cucumber, to throw me away on
the first opportunity.  One morning, at my return from mass, I found
nothing at home but the bare walls; the movables, not excepting my
own apparel, every stick and every thread, had been carried off.
Zendono and his faithful servant had taken their measures so
adroitly, that in less than an hour the house had been completely
gutted; so that with nothing but the gown upon my back, and Don
Felix's ring, as good luck would have it, on my finger, here stood I,
like another Ariadne, abandoned by the ungrateful rifler of my
effects as well as of my charms.  But you may take my word for it, I
did not beguile the sense of my misfortunes in tragedy, elegy, scene
individable, or poem unlimited.  I rather fell upon my knees, and
blessed my guardian angel for having delivered me from a rascal who
must sooner or later fall into the hands of justice.  The time we had
passed together I considered in the light of a dead loss, and my
spirits were all on the alert to make up for it.  If I had been
inclined to stay in Portugal, as a hanger-on to some woman of
fashion, I should have found no difficulty in suiting myself; but
whether it was patriotism, or some astrological conjunction,
preparing a better fortune for me under the influence of the planets,
my whole heart was bent on getting back into Spain.  I applied to a
jeweller, who valued my diamond and gave me cash for it, and then
took my departure with an old Spanish lady who was going to Seville
in a post-chaise.

This lady, whose name was Dorothea, had been to see a relation
settled at Coimbra, and was on her return to Seville, where she
lived.  There was such a sympathy between us as made us fast friends
on the very first day of our acquaintance; and the attachment grew so
close while we travelled together, that the lady insisted, at our
journey's end, on my making her house my home.  I had no reason to
repent having formed such a connection.  Never was there a woman of a
more charming character.  One might still conclude, from the turn of
her countenance, and from the spirit not yet quenched in her eyes,
that in her youth the catgut of many a guitar must have been fretted
under her window.  As a proof of this, she had many trials what a
state of widowhood was; her husbands had all been of noble birth, and
her finances were flourishing on the accumulation of her several
jointures.

Among other admirable qualities, she had that of not visiting
severely the frailties of her own sex.  When I let her into the
secret of mine, she entered so warmly into my interests as to speak
of Zendono with more sincerity than good manners.  What graceless
fellows these men are! said she, in a tone from which one might infer
that she had met with some light-fingered steward in the passing of
her accounts.  They would not be worth picking off a dunghill, if one
could do without them!  There is a large fraternity of sorry
scoundrels in the world, who make it their sport to gain the hearts
of women, and then desert them.  There is, however, one consoling
circumstance, my dear child.  According to your account, you are by
no means bound fast to that faithless Biscayan.  If your marriage
with him was sufficiently formal to save your credit with the world,
on the other hand, it was contracted loosely enough to admit of your
trying your luck at a better match, whenever an opportunity may fall
in your way.

I went out every day with Dorothea, either to church, or to visit
among her friends; both likely occasions of picking up an adventure;
so that I attracted the notice of several gentlemen.  There were some
of them who had a mind to feel how the land lay.  They made their
proposals to my venerable protectress; but these had not wherewithal
to defray the expenses of an establishment, and those were mere
unfledged boys under age; an insuperable objection, which left me
very little merit in turning a deaf ear to them.  One day a whim
seized Dorothea and me to go and see a play at Seville.  The bills
announced a favorite and standard piece: El Embaxador de Si-mismo,
written by Lope de Vega.

Among the actresses who came upon the stage, I discovered one of my
old cronies.  It was impossible to have forgotten Phenicia, that
bouncing good-humored girl whom you have seen as Florimonde's
waiting-maid, and have supped with more than once at Arsenia's.  I
was aware that Phenicia had left Madrid about two years ago, but had
never heard of her turning actress.  I longed so earnestly to embrace
her, that the piece appeared quite tedious.  Perhaps, too, there
might be some fault in those who played it, as being neither good
enough nor bad enough to afford me entertainment.  For as to my own
temper, which is that of seeking diversion wherever I can find it, I
must confess that an actor supremely ridiculous answers my purpose
just as well as the most finished performer of the age.

At last, the moment I had been waiting for being arrived, namely, the
dropping of the curtain on this favorite and standard piece, we
went--for my widow would go with me--behind the scenes, where we
caught a glimpse of Phenicia, who was playing off the amiable and
unaffected simpleton, and listening with all the primness of studied
simplicity to the soft chirping of a young stagefinch, who had
evidently suffered himself to be caught in the birdlime of her
professional or meretricious talents.  No sooner did her eye meet
mine, than she quitted him with a genteel apology, ran up to me with
open arms, and lavished upon me all the demonstrations of strong
attachment imaginable.  Our expressions of joy at this unexpected
meeting were indeed reciprocal; but neither time nor place admitting
of any very copious indulgence in the privilege of asking questions,
we adjourned till the following day, with a promise of renewing our
mutual inquiries thick and threefold, under the shelter of her
friendly roof.

The pleasure of talking is the inextinguishable passion of woman,
coeval with the act of breathing.  I could not get a wink of sleep
all night for the burning desire of having a grapple with Phenicia,
and closing in upon her in the conflict of curiosity.  Witness, all
the powers who preside over tattling, whether the love of lying in
bed--another passion of woman--prevented me from getting up and
flying to my appointment as early as good manners would allow.  She
lived with the rest of the company in a large, ready-furnished
lodging.  A female attendant who met me at entrance, on being
requested to show me Phenicia's apartment, led the way up stairs to a
gallery, along which were ranged ten or twelve small rooms, divided
only by partitions of deal boards, and inhabited by this merry band.
My conductress knocked at a door, which Phenicia opened; for her
tongue was cruelly on the fidget to be let loose, as well as my own.
We allowed ourselves no time for the impertinent ceremonies which
usually usher in a visit, but plunged at once into a most furious
career of loquacity.  It seemed as if we should have a tight bout
together.  There were so many interrogatories to be bandied backwards
and forwards, that question and answer rebounded like tennis-balls,
only with tenfold velocity.

After having related our adventures each to other, and inquired into
the actual condition of affairs, Phenicia asked me how I meant to
provide for myself.  My reply was, that I purposed, while waiting for
something better, to get a situation with some young lady of quality.
For shame! exclaimed my other self; you shall not think of such a
thing.  Is it possible, my darling, that you should not yet be
disgusted with menial service?  Are you not heartily sick of knocking
under to the good or ill pleasure of others, of being cap-in-hand to
all their caprices, and after all to be entertained with that
unchangeable tune called a scolding--in a word, to be a downright
slave?  Why do not you follow my example, and turn your thoughts
towards the stage?  Nothing can be better suited to people of parts,
when they happen not to be equally favored in the articles of wealth
and birth.  It is a sphere of life which holds a middle rank between
the nobility and mere tradespeople; a profession exempted from all
troublesome restraint, and raised far above the common prejudices of
humble and decent society.  The public are our bankers, and we draw
upon them at sight.  We live in a continual round of ecstasy, and
spend our money to the full as fast as we earn it.

The theatre (for she went on at a great rate) is favorable above all
to women.  When I lived with Florimonde,--it is a misery to think of
it,--I was reduced to take up with the supernumeraries of the
prince's company; not a single man of fashion paid the least
attention to my figure.  How came that about?  Because they never got
a glimpse of it.  The finest picture in the world may escape the
admiration of the connoisseurs, if it is not placed in a proper
light.  But since I have been suitably framed and varnished, which
could only happen in consequence of a theatrical finish, what a
revolution!  The finest young fellows of all the towns we pass
through are shuffling at my heels.  An actress, therefore, has all
her little comforts about her, without deviating from the line of her
duty.  If she is discreet,--by which we mean that she should not
admit more than one lover into her good graces at a time,--her
exemplary conduct is cried up as without a parallel.  She is called a
very Niobe for her coldness; and when she changes her favorite, ahe
is reprimanded as slightly by the world as a lawful widow who marries
a few weeks too soon after the death of her first husband.  If,
however, the widow should look for luck in odd numbers, and take to
herself a third, the contempt of all mankind is poured down on her
devoted head; she is considered as a monster of indelicacy; whereas
we happier women are so much the more in vogue, as we add to the list
of our favorites.  After having been served up to a hundred different
lovers, some battered nobleman finds us a dainty dish for himself.

Do you mean that by way of news? interrupted I, as she uttered the
last sentiment.  Do you imagine me to be ignorant of these
advantages?  I have often conned them over in my mind, and they are
but too alluring to a girl of my character.  The attractions of the
stage would be irresistible, were inclination all.  But some little
talent is indispensable, and I have not a spark.  I have sometimes
attempted to rehearse passages from plays before Arsenia.  She was
never satisfied with my performance, and that disgusted me with the
profession.  You are easily put out of conceit with yourself, replied
Phenicia.  Do not you know that these great actresses are very apt to
be jealous?  With all their vanity, they are afraid lest some newer
face should put them out of countenance.  In short, I would not be
guided by Arsenia on that subject; she did not give her real opinion.
In my judgment, and without meaning to flatter you, the theatre is
your natural element.  You have admirable powers, free and graceful
action, a fine-toned voice, volubility of declamation, and such a
turn of countenance!  Ah, you little rogue! you will bring all the
young fellows behind the scenes, if once you take to the boards!

She plied me with many flattering compliments besides, and made me
recite some lines, only by way of enabling me to form my own judgment
as to my theatrical genius.  Now that she was my censor, it seemed
quite another thing.  She praised me up to the skies, and held all
the actresses in Madrid as mere makeweights in the scale.  After such
a testimony, it would have been inexcusable to hesitate about my own
merit.  Arsenia stood attainted, nay, convicted of jealousy and
treachery.  There could be no question about my being everything that
was delightful.  Two players happened to drop in by accident, and
Phenicia prevailed on me to repeat the lines I had already spouted;
they fell into a sort of enthusiastic trance, whence they were roused
only to launch out fervently in admiration of me.  Literally, had
they all three been flattering me up for a wager, they could not have
adopted a more extravagant scale of panegyric.  My modesty was not
proof against such praise from those who were themselves praised.  I
began to think myself really worthy of something; and now was my
whole heart and soul turned towards a theatrical life.

Since this is the case, said I to Phenicia, the affair is determined.
I will follow your advice, and engage in your company, if they will
accept me.  My friend, transported with joy at this proposal, clasped
me in her arms; and her two companions seemed no less delighted than
herself at finding me in that humor.  It was settled that I should
attend the theatre on the following day in the morning, and exhibit
before the collected body the same sample of my talent as I had just
displayed.  If I had bought golden opinions from Phenicia and her
friends, the actors in general were still more complimentary in their
judgment, after I had recited but twenty lines before them.  They
gave me an engagement with the utmost willingness.  Then there was
nothing thought of but my first appearance.  To make it as striking
as possible, I laid out all the money remaining from the sale of my
ring; and though my funds would not allow of being splendid in my
dress, I discovered the art of substituting taste for glitter, and
converting my poverty into a new grace.

At length I came out.  What clapping of hands! what general
admiration!  It would be speaking faintly, my friend, to tell you
downright that the spectators were all in an ecstasy.  You must have
heard with your own ears what a noise I made at Seville, to believe
it.  The whole talk of the town was about me, and the house was
crowded for three weeks successively; so that this novelty restored
the theatre to its popularity, when it was evidently beginning to
decline.  Thus did I come upon the stage, and step into public favor
at once.  But to come upon the stage with such distinction is
generally a prelude to coming upon the town; or at least to putting
one's self up at auction to the best bidder.  Twenty sparks of all
ages, from seventeen to seventy, were on the list of candidates, and
would have worn me in my newest gloss.  Had I followed my own
inclination, I should have chosen the youngest, and the most of a
lady's man; but in our profession, interest and ambition must bear
the sway, till we have feathered our nest; that is as invariable a
rule as any in the prompt-book.  On this principle, Don Ambrosio de
Nisana, a man in whom age and ugliness had done their worst, but
rich, generous, and one of the most powerful noblemen in Andalusia,
had the refusal of the bargain.  It is true that he paid handsomely
for it.  He took a fine house for me, furnished it in the extreme of
magnificence, allowed me a man cook of the first eminence, two
footmen, a lady's maid, and a thousand ducats a month for my personal
expenses.  Add to all this a rich wardrobe, and an elegant assortment
of jewels.

What a revolution in my affairs!  My poor brain was completely
turned.  I could not believe myself to be the same person.  No wonder
if girls soon forget the meanness and misery whence some man of
quality has rescued them in a fit of caprice.  My confession shall be
without reserve: public applause, flattering speeches buzzed about on
every side, and Don Ambrosio's passion kindled such a flame of
self-conceit as kept me in a continual ferment of extravagance.  I
considered my talents as a patent of nobility.  I put on the woman of
fashion, and becoming as chary as I had hitherto been lavish of my
amorous challengers, determined to look no lower than dukes, counts,
or marquises.

My lord of Nisana brought some of his friends to sup with me every
evening.  It was my care to invite the best companions among our
actresses, and we wore away a good part of the night in laughing and
drinking.  I fell in very kindly with so delicious a life; but it
lasted only six months.  Men of rank are apt to be whimsical; but for
that fault, they would be too heavenly.  Don Ambrosio deserted me for
a young coquette from Grenada, who had just brought a pretty person
to the Seville market, and knew how to set off her wares to the best
advantage.  But I did not fret after him more than four-and-twenty
hours.  His place was supplied by a young fellow of two-and-twenty,
Don Lewis d' Alcacer, with whom few Spaniards could vie in point of
face and figure.

You will ask me, doubtless, and it is natural to do so, why I
selected so green a sprig of nobility for my paramour, when my own
experience so strongly dissuaded from such a choice.  But, besides
that Don Lewis had neither father nor mother, and was already in
possession of his fortune, you are to know that there is no danger of
disagreeable consequences attaching to any but girls in a servile
condition of life, or those unfortunate loose fish who are game for
every sportsman.  Ladies of our profession are privileged persons; we
let off our charms like a rocket, and are not answerable for the
damage where they fall; so much the worse for those families whose
heirs we set in a blaze.

As for Alcacer and myself, we were so strongly attached to one
another, that I verily believe, Love never yet did such execution as
when he took aim at us two.  Our passion was of such a violent
nature, that we seemed to be under the influence of some spell.
Those who knew how well we were together, thought us the happiest
pair in the world; but we, who knew best, found ourselves the most
miserable.  Though Don Lewis had as fine an outside as ever fell to
the lot of man, he was at the same time so jealous, that there was no
living for vexation at his unfounded surmises.  It was of no use,
knowing his weakness and humoring it, to lay an embargo on my looks,
if ever a male creature peeped into harbor; his suspicious temper,
seldom at a loss for some crime to impute, rendered my armed
neutrality of no avail.  Our most tender moments had always a spice
of wrangling.  There was no standing the brunt of it; patience could
hold out no longer on either side, and we quarrelled more peaceably
than we had loved.  Could you believe that the last day of our being
together was the happiest?  Both equally wearied out by the perpetual
recurrence of unpleasant circumstances, we gave a loose to our
transports when we embraced for the last time.  We were like two
wretched captives, breathing the fresh air of liberty after all the
horrors of our prison-house.

Since that adventure, I have worn a breastplate against the little
archer.  No more amorous nonsense for me, at least to a troublesome
excess!  It is quite out of our line to sigh and complain like
Arcadian shepherdesses.  Those should never give way to a passion in
private, who hold it up to ridicule before the public.

While these events were passing in my domestic establishment, Fame
had not hung her trumpet breathless on the willows; she spread it
about universally that I was an inimitable actress.  That celestial
tattler, though bankrupt times out of number, still contrives to
revive her credit; the comedians of Grenada therefore wrote to offer
me an engagement in their company; and by way of evidence that the
proposal was not to be scorned, they sent me a statement of their
daily receipts and disbursements, with their terms, which seemed to
be advantageous.  That being the case, I closed, though grieved in my
heart to part with Phenicia and Dorothea, whom I loved as well as
woman is capable of loving woman.  I left the first laudably employed
in melting the plate of a little haggling goldsmith, whose vanity so
far got the better of his avarice that he must needs have a
theatrical heroine for his mistress.  I forgot to tell you that on my
translation to the stage, from mere whim, I changed the name of Laura
to that of Estella; and it was under the latter name that I took this
engagement at Grenada.

My first appearance was no less successful here than at Seville; and
I soon felt myself wafted along by the sighs of my admirers.  But
resolving not to favor any except on honorable terms, I kept a guard
of modesty in my intercourse with them, which threw dust in their
eyes.  Nevertheless, not to be the dupe of virtues which pay very
indifferently, and were not exactly at home in their new mansion, I
was balancing whether or not to take up with a young fellow of mean
extraction, who had a place under government, and assumed the style
of a gentleman in virtue of his office, with a good table and
handsome equipage, when I saw the Marquis de Marialva for the first
time.  This Portuguese nobleman, travelling over Spain from mere
curiosity, stopped at Grenada as he passed through it.  He came to
the play.  I did not perform that evening.  His examination of the
actresses was very particular, and he found one to his liking.  Their
acquaintance commenced on the very next day; and the definitive
treaty was very nearly concluded when I appeared upon the stage.
What with some personal graces, and no little affectation in setting
them off, the weather-cock veered about all on a sudden; my
Portuguese was mine, and mine only, till death do us part.  Yet,
since the truth must be told, I knew perfectly that my sister of the
sock and buskin had entrapped this nobleman, and spared no pains to
chouse her out of her prize; to my success you are yourself a
witness.  She bears me no small grudge on that account; but the thing
could not be avoided.  She ought to reflect that it is the way of all
female flesh; that the dearest friends play off the same trick upon
one another, and put a good face upon it into the bargain.




_CHAPTER VIII._

_THE RECEPTION OF GIL BLAS AMONG THE PLATERS AT GRENADA; AND ANOTHER
OLD ACQUAINTANCE PICKED UP IN THE GREEN-ROOM._

Just as Laura was finishing her story, there came in an old actress
who lived in her neighborhood, and was come to take her to the
theatre as she passed by.  This venerable tutelary of the stage was
admirably fitted to play some superannuated strumpet among the
heathen goddesses in a pantomime.  My sister was not remiss in
introducing her brother to that stale old harridan, whereupon a
profusion of compliments was bandied about on both sides.

I left them together, telling the steward's relict that I would join
her again at the playhouse, as soon as I had sent my baggage to the
Marquis de Marialva's, to whose residence she directed me.  First I
went to the room I had hired, whence, after having settled with my
landlady, I repaired with a porter who carried my luggage to a large
ready-furnished house, where my new master was quartered.  At the
door I met his steward, who asked me if I was not the lady Estella's
brother.  I answered in the affirmative.  Then you are welcome,
Signor Cavalier, replied he.  The Marquis de Marialva, whose steward
I have the honor to be, has commissioned me to receive you properly.
There is a room got ready for you; I will show you the way to it, if
you please, that you may be quite at home.  He took me up to the top
of the house, and thrust me into so small a room, that a very narrow
bed, a chest of drawers, and two chairs completely filled it.  This
was my apartment.  You will not have much spare room, said my
conductor, but as a set-off, I promise you that you shall be superbly
lodged at Lisbon.  I locked up my portmanteau in the wardrobe, and
put the key in my pocket, asking at the same time what was the hour
of supper.  The answer was, that his lordship seldom supped at home,
but allowed each servant a monthly sum for board wages.  I put
several other questions, and learned that the marquis's people were a
happy set of idle fellows.  After a conversation short and sweet, I
left the steward to go and look for Laura, reflecting, much to my own
satisfaction, on the happy omens I drew from the opening of my new
situation.

As soon as I got to the playhouse door, and mentioned my name as
Estella's brother, there was free admission at once.  You might have
observed the forwardness of the guards to make way for me, just as if
I had been one of the most considerable noblemen in Grenada.  All the
supernumeraries, doorkeepers, and receivers of checks whom I
encountered in my progress, made me their very best bows.  But what I
should like best to give the reader an idea of is the serious
reception which the merry vagrants gave me in the green-room, where I
found the whole dramatis personæ ready dressed, and on the point of
drawing up the curtain.  The actors and actresses, to whom Laura
introduced me, fell upon me without mercy.  The men were quite
troublesome with their greetings; and the women, not to be outdone,
laid their plastered faces alongside of mine, till they covered it
with a villanous compound of red and white.  No one choosing to be
the last in making me welcome, they all paid their compliments in a
breath.  Æolus himself, answering from all the points of the compass
at once, would not have been a match for them: but my sister was; for
the loan of her tongue was always at the service of a friend, and she
brought me completely out of debt.

But I did not get clear off with the squeezes of the principal
performers.  The civilities of the scene-painters, the band, the
prompter, the candle-snuffer, and the call-boy were to be endured
with patience; all the understrappers in the theatre came to see me
run the gantlet.  One would have supposed one's self in a foundling
hospital, and that they had none of them ever known what sort of
animals brothers and sisters were.

In the mean time the play began.  Some gentlemen, who were behind the
scenes, then ran to get seats in the front of the house: for my part,
feeling myself quite at home, I continued in conversation with those
of the actors who were waiting to go on.  Among the number there was
one whom they called Melchior.  The name struck me.  I looked hard at
the person who answered to it, and thought I had seen him somewhere.
At last I recollected that it was Melchior Zapata, a poor strolling
player, who has been described, in the first volume of this true
history, as soaking his crusts in the pure element.

I immediately took him aside, and said, I am much mistaken if you are
not that Signor Melchior with whom I had the honor of breakfasting
one day by the margin of a clear fountain, between Valladolid and
Segovia.  I was with a journeyman barber.  We had some provisions
with us which we clubbed with yours, and all three partook of a
little rural feast, to which wit and anecdote gave additional relish.
Zapata bethought him for a minute or two, and then answered, You tell
me of a circumstance which often since came across my mind.  I had
then just been trying my fortune at Madrid, and was returning to
Zamora.  I recollect perfectly that my affairs were a little out at
elbows.  I recollect it too, replied I, by the token of a doublet
which you wore, lined with play-bills.  Neither have I forgotten that
you complained of having a wife cursed with incorruptible chastity.
O! that misfortune has found its remedy long ago, said Zapata,
shaking his ears.  By all the powers of womanhood, the jade has
effectually reformed that virtue, and given me a warmer lining to my
doublet.

I was going to congratulate him on his wife's having shown so much
sense, when he was obliged to leave me and go on the stage.  Being
curious to know what sort of an animal his wife was, I went up to an
actor and desired him to point her out.  He did so, saying at the
same time, There she is; it is Narcissa--the prettiest of all our
women except your sister.  I concluded that this must be the actress
in whose favor the Marquis de Marialva had declared before meeting
with his Estella; and my conjecture was but too correct.  After the
play, I attended Laura home, where I saw several cooks preparing a
handsome entertainment.  You may sup here, said she.  I will do no
such thing, answered I: the marquis perhaps will like to be alone
with you.  Not at all, replied she; he is coming with two of his own
friends and one of our gentlemen; you will just make the sixth.  You
know that in our free and easy way there is no impropriety in
secretaries sitting down at table with their masters.  Very true,
said I; but it is rather too soon to assume the privilege of a
favorite.  I must first get employed in some confidential commission,
and then lay in my claim to that honorable distinction.  Judging it
to be so best, I went out of Laura's house, and got back to my inn,
whither I reckoned on repairing every day, since my master had no
regular establishment.




_CHAPTER IX._

_AN EXTRAORDINARY COMPANION AT SUPPER; AND AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR
CONVERSATION._

I remarked in the coffee-room a sort of an old monk, habited in
coarse gray cloth, at supper, quite alone in a corner.  I went and
sat opposite to him out of curiosity; we exchanged a civil bow, and
he showed himself to be quite as well bred as I was, notwithstanding
my lay education.  My commons were brought me, and I fell to with a
very catholic appetite.  While I was eating, my tongue was mute, but
my eyes glanced by snatches towards this singular character, and
always caught his at the same employment.  Liking better to stare
than be stared at, I addressed my speech to him thus: Pray, father,
have we ever by any chance met anywhere but here?  You peer at me as
if you scarcely knew whether I was an acquaintance or a stranger.  He
answered gravely, If I look at you with fixed attention, it is only
to admire the prodigious variety of adventures which are chronicled
in the features of your face.  It should seem, said I, in a joking
tone, as if your reverence was something of a physiognomist.  Far
more deeply imbued in science than a mere physiognomist, answered the
monk, I found prophecies on my observations which have never been
belied by the event.  My skill in palmistry is no less, and I will
set my oracles against the surest of antiquity, after comparing the
inspection of the hand with that of the face.

Though this old man had all the appearance of profound wisdom, his
talk was so like that of a madman, that I could not help laughing at
him outright.  So far from being offended at my want of manners, he
smiled at it, and went on to the following effect, after running his
eye round the coffee-room, to be assured that there were no
listeners: I am not surprised at finding you so prejudiced against
two sciences which pass at this time of day for mere frivolity; the
long and painful study they require disheartens the learned, who turn
their backs upon them, and then swear that they are fables, out of
disgust at having missed their attainment.  For my part, I am not to
be frightened by the darkness which envelops them, any more than by
the difficulties which are perpetual stumbling-blocks in the pursuit
of chemical discoveries, and in the marvellous art of transmuting
baser metals into gold.

But I do flatter myself, pursued he, looking steadfastly at me, that
I am addressing a young gentleman of good sense, to whom my systems
will not appear altogether in the light of idle dreams.  A sample of
my skill will dispose you better than the most subtile arguments to
pass a favorable judgment on my pretensions.  After talking in this
manner he drew from his pocket a phial full of a lively-looking red
liquor, on which he expatiated thus: Here is an elixir which I have
distilled this morning from the juices of certain plants; for I have
employed almost my whole life, like Democritus, in finding out the
properties of simples and minerals.  You shall make trial of its
virtue.  The wine we are drinking with our supper is very bad;
henceforth it will become excellent.  At the same time he put two
drops of his elixir into my bottle, which made my wine more delicious
than the choicest vintages of Spain.

The marvellous strikes the imagination; and when once that faculty is
enlisted, judgment is turned adrift.  Delighted with so glorious a
secret, and persuaded that he must have outdeviled the devil before
he could have got at it, I cried out in a paroxysm of admiration, O
reverend father! prithee forgive your servant if he took you at first
for an old blockhead.  I now abjure my error.  There is no need to
look further to be assured that it depends only on your own will to
turn an iron bar into a wedge of gold in the twinkling of an eye.
How happy should I be were I master of that admirable science!
Heaven preserve you from ever acquiring it, interrupted the old man,
with a deep sigh.  You know not, my son, what a fatal possession you
covet.  Instead of envying, rather pity me, for having taken such
infinite pains to be made unhappy.  I am always disturbed in mind.  I
fear a discovery; and then perpetual imprisonment would be the reward
of all my labors.  In this apprehension, I lead a vagabond life,
sometimes disguised as a priest or monk, sometimes as a gentleman or
a peasant.  Where is the benefit of knowing how to manufacture gold
on such terms?  Are not the goods of this world downright misery to
those who cannot enjoy them in tranquillity?

What you say appears to me very sensible, said I to the philosopher.
There is nothing like living at one's ease.  You have rid me of all
hankering after the philosopher's stone.  I will rest satisfied with
learning from you my future destiny.  With all my heart, my good lad,
answered he.  I have already made my remarks upon your features; now
let me see your hand.  I gave it him with a confidence which will do
my penetration but little credit in the esteem of some readers.  He
examined it very attentively, and then pronounced, as in a rapture of
inspiration, Ah! what transitions from pain to pleasure, and from
pleasure to pain!  What a whimsical alternation of good and evil
chances!  But you have already experienced the largest share of your
allotted reverses.  You have but few more tides of misfortune to
stem, and then a great lord will contrive for you an eligible fate,
which shall not be subject to change.

After having assured me that I might depend on his prediction, he
bade me farewell, and went out of the inn, leaving me in deep
meditation on the things I had just heard.  There could be no doubt
of the Marquis de Marialva being the great lord in question; and
consequently nothing appeared more within the verge of possibility
than the accomplishment of the oracle.  But though there had not been
the slightest likelihood, that would have been no hinderance to
giving the impostor monk unbounded credit, since his elixir had
transmuted my sour incredulity into the most tractable digestion of
his falsehoods.  That nothing might be wanting on my side to play
into the hands of my foreboded luck, I determined to attach myself
more closely to the marquis than I had ever done to any of my
masters.  Having taken this resolution, I went home in unusually high
spirits: never did foolish woman descend in better humor from the
garret of another foolish woman who had told her fortune.




_CHAPTER X._

_THE MARQUIS DE MARIALVA GIVES A COMMISSION TO GIL BLAS.  THAT
FAITHFUL SECRETARY ACQUITS HIMSELF OF IT AS SHALL BE RELATED._

The marquis was not yet returned from his theatrical party, and I
found his upper servants playing at cards in his apartment while they
were waiting for his arrival.  I got to be sociable with them, and we
amused ourselves with jocular conversation till two o'clock in the
morning, when our master arrived.  He was a little surprised at
seeing me, and said, with an air of kindness, which made me conclude
that he came home very well satisfied with his evening, How is this,
Gil Blas?  Are you not gone to bed yet?  I answered that I wished to
know first whether he had any commands for me.  Probably, replied he,
I may have a commission to give you to-morrow morning; but it will be
time enough then to acquaint you with my wishes.  Go to your own
room, and henceforward remember that I dispense with your attendance
at bed-time; my other servants are sufficient for that occasion.

After this hint, which was much to my satisfaction in the main, since
it spared me a slavery which I should have felt very unpleasantly at
times, I left the marquis in his apartment, and withdrew to my
garret.  I went to bed.  Not being able to sleep, it seemed good to
follow the counsel of Pythagoras, and to examine all the actions of
the day by the test of reason; to reprimand severely what had been
done amiss, and if any thing had been done well, to rejoice in it.

On looking into the day-book of my conscience, the balance was not
sufficiently in my favor to keep me in good humor with myself.  I
felt remorse at having lent myself to Laura's imposition.  It was in
vain to urge, in self-defence, that I could not, with any decency,
give the lie to a girl who had no object in view but to do me a
pleasure, and that I was in some sort under the necessity of becoming
an accomplice in the fraud.  This was a paltry excuse in the darkness
of the night, for I pleaded against myself that at all events the
matter should be pushed no farther, and that it was the summit of
impudence to remain upon the establishment of a nobleman whose
confidence I so ill repaid.  In short, after a severe trial, it was
agreed in my own breast, that I was very little short of an arrant
knave.

But to have done with the morality of the act, and pass on to the
probable issue, it was evidently playing a desperate game, to cozen a
man of consequence, who might be enabled, as an instrument for the
visitation of my sins perhaps, to detect the imposture in its very
infancy.  A reflection at once so prudent and so virtuous acted as a
refrigerator on my spirits; but visions of pleasure and of interest
soon raised them again above the freezing point.  Besides, the
prophecy of the man with the elixir would have been enough to put me
in heart once more.  I therefore gave myself up to the indulgence of
the most agreeable fancies.  All the rules of arithmetic, from simple
addition to compound interest, were set in array, to cast up what sum
my salary would amount to at the end of ten years' service.  Then
there was a large allowance for presents and gratuities from my
master, whose liberal disposition according admirably with my liberal
desires, my imagination grew quite fantastical, and extended the
landmarks of my fortune over innumerable acres of unsubstantial
territory.  Sleep overtook me in the calculation, and raised a
magnificent aerial mansion on the estate, where a new race of
grandees was to originate.  I got up the next morning about eight
o'clock to go and receive my patron's orders; but as I was opening my
door to go out, what was my surprise at meeting him in his
wrapping-gown and night-cap!  He was quite alone.  Gil Blas, said he,
on parting with your sister last night, I promised to pass this
morning with her; but an affair of consequence will not admit of my
keeping my word.  Go and assure her from me that I am deeply
mortified at the disappointment, but that I shall certainly sup with
her to-night.  That is not all, added he, putting a purse into my
hands and a little shagreen case set round with diamonds; carry her
my portrait, and keep this purse of fifty pistoles, which I give you
as a mark of my early-conceived friendship.  I took the picture in
one hand, and in the other the purse to which I was so little
entitled.  I put my best leg foremost in my way to Laura, muttering
to myself, in the transports of excessive joy, Good! the prophecy is
accomplished in the twinkling of an eye.  What a windfall, to be the
brother of a girl so full of beauty and attraction!  It is a pity the
credit attached to the relationship is not commensurate with the
lucre and the comfort.

Laura, unlike most women in her profession, had a habit of early
rising.  I caught her at her toilet, where, while waiting for her
illustrious foreigner, she was ingrafting on her natural beauty all
the adventitious charms which the cosmetic art could supply.  Lovely
Estella, said I, on accosting her, thou absolute loadstone of the
tramontanes, I may now sit down at table with my master, since he has
honored me with a commission which gives me that prerogative, and
which I am just come to fulfil.  He cannot have the pleasure of
waiting on you this morning, as he had purposed; but, to make you
amends for the disappointment, he will sup here this evening, and
sends you his picture, which, to all appearance, is enclosed in
something more valuable than itself.

I put the box into her hand at once, and the lively sparkling of the
brilliants which encompassed it made her eyes sparkle and her mouth
water.  She opened it out of mere curiosity, looked carelessly at the
painting, as people perform a duty for which they have little relish,
then shut it, and once more fell greedily on the jewelry.  Their
beauty made her eloquent, and she said to me, with the smile of a
satirist, These are copies which those mercenary things called
actresses value much more highly than originals.

I next acquainted her that the generous Portuguese, when giving me
charge of the portrait, recommended it to my care by a purse of fifty
pistoles.  I beg you will accept of my congratulations, said she;
this nobleman begins where it is even uncommon for others to leave
off.  It is to you, my divine creature, answered I, that this present
is owing; the marquis only made it on the score of natural affection.
I could be well pleased, replied she, that he were to make you a
score such presents every day.  I cannot express in what extravagance
you are dear to me.  From the first moment of our meeting, I became
attached to you by so strong a tie, as time has not been able to
dissolve.  When I lost you at Madrid, I did not despair of finding
you again; and yesterday, on your sudden appearance, I received you
like a deodand.  In a word, my friend, heaven has created us for one
another.  You shall be my husband, but we must get plenty of money in
the first instance.  I shall just lend myself out to three or four
silly fellows more, and then you may live like a gentleman on your
means.

I thanked her in the most appropriate terms for such an instance of
extreme condescension on my behalf, and we got insensibly into a
conversation which lasted till noon.  At that hour I withdrew, to go
and give my master an account of the manner in which his present was
received.  Though Laura had given me no instructions thereupon, I was
not remiss in composing a fine compliment on my way, with which I
meant to launch out on her part; but it was just so much flash in the
pan.  For, when I got home the marquis was gone out; and the fates
had decreed that I should never see him more, for reasons which will
be methodically stated in the succeeding chapter.




_CHAPTER XI._

_A THUNDERBOLT TO GIL BLAS._

I repaired to my inn, where meeting with two men of companionable
talents, I dined and sat at table with them till the play began.  We
parted; they as their business and desire pointed them, and, for my
own part, my bent was towards the theatre.  It may be proper to
observe, by the way, that I had all possible reason to be in a good
humor.  The conversation with my chance companions had been joyous in
the extreme; the color of my fortune was gay and animating; yet for
all that I could not help giving way to melancholy, without either
knowing why, or being able to reason myself out of it.  It was
doubtless a prophetic warning of the misfortune which threatened me.

As I entered the green-room, Melchior Zapata came up, and told me, in
a low voice, to follow him.  He led me to an unfrequented part of the
house, and opened his business thus: Worthy sir, I make it a point of
conscience to give you a very serious warning.  You are aware that
the Marquis de Marialva had at first taken a fancy to Narcissa, my
wife; he had even gone so far as to fix a day for trying the relish
of my rib, when that cockatrice Estella contrived to flyblow the bill
of fare, and transfer the banquet to her own untainted charms.
Judge, then, whether an actress can be gulled instead of gulling, and
preserve the sweetness of her temper.  My wife has taken it deeply to
heart, and there is no species of revenge to which she would not have
recourse.  A fine opportunity has offered.  Yesterday, if you
recollect, all our supernumeraries were crowding together to see you.
The deputy candle-snuffer told some of the inferior comedians that he
recollected you perfectly well, and that you might be anything but
Estella's brother.

This report, added Melchior, came to Narcissa's ears to-day: she lost
no time in questioning the author; and that grub of the interior
stood to the whole story.  He says that he knew you as Arsenia's
servant, when Estella waited on her at Madrid under the name of
Laura.  My wife, full of glee at this discovery, means to acquaint
the Marquis de Marialva with it, when he comes to the play this
evening; so take your measures accordingly.  If you are not Estella's
brother in good earnest, I would advise you as a friend, and on the
score of old acquaintance, to make your escape while your skin is
whole.  Narcissa, satisfied in her tender mercy with only one victim,
and that of her own sex, has allowed me to give you this notice, that
you may outrun your ill luck.

It would have been waste of words to press the subject farther.  I
returned thanks for the caution to this fretter of his hour, who saw
by my terrified aspect that I was not the man to give the deputy
candle-snuffer the lie.  I did not feel the least temptation to carry
my dangerous valor such a length.  I had not even the heart to go and
bid farewell to Laura, for fear she should insist on my keeping up
the farce.  I could easily conceive that so excellent an actress
might get out of the scrape with flying colors; but there seemed to
be nothing for me short of a swingeing castigation; and I was not so
far gone in love as to stand by my sweetheart at the risk of my own
person.  I thought of nothing but a precipitate retreat with my
household gods, or rather goods, if such a trumpery collection of
individual property might be called so.  I disappeared from the
playhouse in the twinkling of an eye; and, in less time than it would
have taken to confess my sins, was my portmanteau carried off and
safely lodged with a muleteer who was to set out for Toledo at three
o'clock next morning.  I could have wished myself already with the
Count de Polan, whose hospitable roof seemed my only safe asylum.
But I was not there yet; and it was impossible to think without dread
of the time remaining to be passed in a town where I was afraid they
would hunt me out without giving me a night's law.

The smell of supper drew me to my inn notwithstanding; though I was
as uneasy as a debtor who knows that a writ is out against him.  My
stomach, I believe, was not sufficiently well knit that evening for
my supper to play its part as it should do.  The miserable sport of
fear, I watched all the people who came into the coffee-room, and
whenever by chance they carried a gallows in their
physiognomy,--which is no uncommon ensign in such places of
resort,--I shuddered with horrid forebodings.  After having supped
the supper of the damned, I got up from table and returned to my
carrier's house, where I threw myself on some clean straw till it was
time to set out.

My patience was well tried during that interval; for a thousand
unpleasant thoughts attacked me in all directions.  If I dozed now
and then, the enraged marquis stood before me, pounding Laura's fair
face to a jelly with his fist, and turning her whole house out at
window; or, to come nearer home, I heard him giving directions for my
death under the operation of a cudgel.  At such a vision I started
out of my sleep, and waking, which is usually so pleasant after a
frightful dream, inspired me with more horror than even the fictions
of my entranced fancy.

Happily the muleteer delivered me from so dire a purgatory, by coming
to acquaint me that his mules were ready.  I was immediately on my
legs, and set out radically cured, for which heaven has my best
thanks, of Laura and the occult sciences.  As we got farther from
Grenada, my mind recovered its tone.  I began chatting with the
muleteer, laughed at his droll stories, and insensibly lost all my
apprehensions.  I slept undisturbed at Ubeda, where we lay the first
night, and on the fourth day we got to Toledo.  My first care was to
inform myself of the Count de Polan's residence, whither I repaired
under the full persuasion that he would not suffer me to lodge
elsewhere.  But I reckoned without my host.  There was no one at home
but a person to take care of the house, who told me that his master
was just gone to the castle of Leyva, having been sent for on account
of Seraphina's dangerous illness.

The count's absence was altogether unexpected: here was no longer any
inducement to stay at Toledo, and all my plans were changed at once.
Finding myself so near Madrid, I resolved to go thither.  It came
into my head that I might make my way at court, where talents of the
first order, as I had heard, were not absolutely necessary to fill
situations of the first consequence.  On the very next morning I took
advantage of back carriage, to be set down in the renowned capital of
Spain.  Fortune took me kindly by the hand, and introduced me to a
higher cast of parts than those I had hitherto filled.




_CHAPTER XII._

_GIL BLAS TAKES LODGINGS IN A READY-FURNISHED HOUSE.  HE GETS
ACQUAINTED WITH CAPTAIN CHINCHILLA.  THAT OFFICER'S CHARACTER AND
BUSINESS AT MADRID._

On my first arrival at Madrid, I fixed my headquarters in a
lodging-house, where resided, among other persons, an old captain,
who was come from the distant part of New Castille, to solicit a
pension at court, and he thought his claims but too well founded.
His name was Don Annibal de Chinchilla.  It was not without much
staring that I saw him for the first time.  He was a man about sixty,
of gigantic stature, and of anatomical leanness.  His whiskers were
like brushwood, fencing off the two sides of his face as high as his
temples.  Besides that, he was short in his reckoning by an arm and a
leg; there was a vacancy for an eye, which Polypheme would have
supplied as he did, had patches of green silk been then in the
fashion; and his features were hacked sufficiently to illustrate a
treatise of geometry.  With these exceptions, his configuration was
much like that of another man.  As to his mental qualities, he was
not altogether without understanding; and what he wanted in quickness
he made up by gravity.  His principles were rigid in the extreme; and
it was his particular boast to be delicate on the point of honor.

After two or three interviews, he distinguished me by his confidence.
I soon got into all his personal history: he related on what
occasions he had left an eye at Naples, an arm in Lombardy, and a leg
in the Low Countries.  The most admirable circumstance in all his
narratives of battles and sieges was, that not a single feature of
the swaggerer peeped out; not a word escaped him to his own honor and
glory; though one could readily have forgiven him for making some
little display of the half which was still extant of himself, as a
set-off against the dilapidations which had deducted so largely from
the usual contexture of a man.  Officers who return from their
campaigns without a scratch upon their skin, or a love-lock out of
place, are not always so humble in their pretensions.

But he told me that what gave him most uneasiness was the having
wasted a considerable portion of his private fortune on military
objects, so that he had not more than a hundred ducats a year left--a
poor establishment for such a pair of whiskers, a gentleman's
lodging, and an amanuensis to multiply memorials by wholesale.  For,
in point of fact, my worthy friend, added he, shrugging his
shoulders, I present one, with a blessing on my endeavors, every day,
and the last meets with the same attention as the first.  You would
say that it was an even bet between the prime minister and me, which
of us two shall be tired first, the memorialist or the receiver of
the memorials.  I have often had the honor, too, of addressing the
king on the same subject; but the rector and his curate say grace in
the same key; and in the mean time my castle of Chinchilla is falling
to ruin for want of necessary repairs.

Faint heart never won fair lady, said I most wisely to the captain;
you are perhaps on the eve of finding all your marches and
countermarches repaid with usury.  I must not flatter myself with
that pleasing expectation, answered Don Annibal.  It is but three
days since I spoke to one of the minister's secretaries; and if I am
to trust his representations, I have only to hold up my head and look
big.  What, then, did he say to you? replied I.  Had those poor dumb
mouths, your wounds, no eloquence to wring a hireling pittance for
their profuse expense of blood?  You shall judge for yourself,
resumed Chinchilla.  This secretary told me in good plain terms, My
honest friend, you need not boast so much of your zeal and your
fidelity; you have only done your duty in exposing yourself to danger
for your country.  Naked glory is the true and honorable recompense
of gallant actions, and as such is the prize at which a Spaniard
aims.  You therefore argue on false principles, if you consider the
bounty you solicit as a debt.  In case it should be granted, you will
owe that favor exclusively to the royal goodness, which, in its
extreme condescension, requites those of its subjects who have served
the state valiantly.  Thus you see, pursued the captain, that if I
had a hundred lives, they are all pledged, and that I am likely to go
back as hungry as I came.

A brave man in distress is the most touching object in this world.  I
exhorted him to stick close, and offered to write his memorials out
fair for nothing.  I even went so far as to open my purse to him, and
to beg it as a favor that he would draw upon me for whatever he
wanted.  But he was not one of those folks who never wait to be asked
twice on such occasions.  So much the reverse, that with a
commendable delicacy on the subject, he thanked me for my kindness,
but refused it peremptorily.  He afterwards told me that, for fear of
sponging upon any one, he had accustomed himself, by little and
little, to live with such sobriety, that the smallest quantity of
food was sufficient for his subsistence; which was but too true.  His
daily fare was confined to vegetables, by dint whereof his component
parts were confined to skin and bone.  That he might have no
witnesses how ill he dined, he usually shut himself up in his chamber
at that meal.  I prevailed so far with him, however, by repeated
entreaties, as to obtain that we should dine and sup together; then,
undermining his pride by little indirect artifices of compassion, I
ordered more provision and wine than I could consume to my own share.
I pressed him to eat and drink.  At first he made difficulties about
it; but in the end there was no resisting my hospitality.  After a
time, his modesty becoming fainter as his diet was more flush, he
helped me off with my dinner and lightened my bottle almost without
asking.

One day, after four or five glasses, when his stomach had renewed its
intimacy with a more generous system of feeding, he said to me with
an air of gayety, Upon my word, Signor Gil Blas, you have very
winning ways with you; you make me do just whatever you please.
There is something so hearty in your welcome as to relieve me from
all fear of trespassing on your generous temper.  My captain seemed
at that moment so entirely to have got rid of his bashfulness, that
if I had been in the humor to have seized the lucky moment, and to
have pressed my purse once more on his acceptance, I am much mistaken
if he would have refused it.  I did not put him to the trial, but
rested satisfied with having made him my messmate, and taken the
trouble not only to copy out his memorials, but to assist him in
their composition.  By dint of having written homilies out fair, I
had learned the knack of phraseology, and was become a sort of
author.  The old officer, on his side, had some little vanity about
writing well.  Both of us thus contending for the prize, the bursts
of eloquence would have done honor to the most celebrated professors
of Salamanca.  But it was in vain that we sat on opposite sides of
the table, and drained our genius to the very dregs, to nourish the
flowers of rhetoric in these memorials; you might as well have
planted an orange-grove on the sea-beach.  In whatever new light we
placed Don Annibal's services, it was all the same at court, the
connoisseurs were decided about their merit; so that the battered
veteran had no reason to sing the praises of that spirit which leads
officers on to spend their family estates in the service.  In the
virulence of his spleen he cursed the planet under which he was born,
and sent Naples, Lombardy, and the Low Countries to the devil.

That his mortification might be pressed down and running over, it
happened to his face one day that a poet, introduced by the Duke of
Alva, having recited a sonnet before the king on the birth of an
infanta, was gratified with a pension of five hundred ducats.  I
believe the lop-limbed captain would have gone raving mad at it, if I
had not taken some pains to recompense his spirit.  What is the
matter with you? said I, seeing him quite beside himself.  There is
nothing in all this which ought to go so terribly against the grain.
Ever since Mount Parnassus swelled above the subject plain, have not
poets pleaded the privilege of laying princes under contribution to
their muse?  There is not a crowned head in Christendom that has not
substituted a pensioned laureate for the household fool of less
refined times.  And between ourselves, this species of patronage, for
the most part, galloping down full drive to posterity on the saddle
of Pegasus, raises a hue and cry in honor of royal munificence; but
bounty to persons who are lost in a crowd, however deserving, adds
nothing to the bulk or stature of posthumous renown.  Augustus must
have drained his treasury by gratuities, and yet how few of the names
on his pension list have come down to us!  But distant ages shall be
informed, as we are, in all the hyperbole of poetic diction, that his
benefits descended on Virgil like the rain from heaven, whose drops
arithmetic has no combinations to count, no principles by which to
reason on their number.

But let me talk ever so classically to Don Annibal, there was a
confounded acidity in that sonnet which curdled all the milky
ingredients of his moral composition; it was impossible to chew,
swallow, and digest such food with human organs; and he was fully
determined to give the matter up at once.  It seemed right,
nevertheless, by way of playing for his last stake, to present one
more memorial to the Duke of Lerma, and if that failed there was an
end of the game.  For this purpose we went together to the prime
minister's.  There we met a young man, who, after saluting the
captain, said to him in a tone of affection, My old and dear master,
is it your own self that I see?  What business brings you to this
mart of favor?  If you have occasion for any one to speak a good word
for you, do not spare my lungs; they are entirely at your service.
How is this, Pedrillo? answered the officer; to hear you talk, it
should seem as if you held some important post in this house.  At
least, replied the young man, I have influence enough here to put an
honest rustic like you into the right train.  That being the case,
resumed the captain with a smile, I place myself under your
protection.  I accept the pledge, rejoined Pedrillo.  You have only
to acquaint me with your particular taste, and I engage to give you a
savory slice out of the ministerial pasty.

We had no sooner opened our minds to this young fellow, so full of
kind assurances, than he inquired where Don Annibal resided; then,
promising that we should hear from him on the following day, he
vanished without informing us what he meant to do, or even telling us
whether he belonged to the Duke of Lerma's household.  I was curious
to know what this Pedrillo was, whose turn of mind appeared to be so
brisk and active.  He is a brave lad, said the captain, who waited on
me some years ago, but finding me out at elbows, went away in search
of a better service.  There was no offence to me in all that; it is
very natural to change when one cannot be worse off.  The creature is
pleasant enough, not deficient in parts, and happy in a spirit of
intrigue which would wheedle with the devil.  But notwithstanding all
his fine pretence, I am not sanguine in my reckoning on the zeal he
has just testified for me.  Perhaps, said I, there may be some
plausibility in his designs.  Should he be a retainer, for example,
to any of the duke's principal officers, it will be in his power to
serve you.  You have lived too long in the world not to know that in
great houses every thing is done by party and cabal; that the masters
are governed by two or three upper servants about their persons, who,
in their turn, are governed by that multitude of menials attendant
upon them.

On the next morning we saw Pedrillo at our breakfast table.
Gentlemen, said he, if I did not explain myself yesterday as to my
means of serving Captain Chinchilla, it was because we were not in a
place where such a communication could be made with safety.  Besides,
I was disposed to ascertain whether the thing was feasible, before
you were made parties in it.  Understand, then, that I am the
confidential servant of Signor Don Rodrigo de Calderona, the Duke of
Lerma's first secretary.  My master, who is much addicted to women,
goes almost every evening to sup with a little Arragonian
nightingale, whom he keeps in a cage near the purlieus of the court.
She is quite a young girl from Albarazin, a most lovely creature.
She has some wit as well as beauty, and sings enchantingly; they call
her the Spanish Siren.  I am the bearer of some tender inquiries
every morning, and am just come from her.  I have proposed to her to
pass off Signor Don Annibal for her uncle, and the object of the
forgery is to engage her lover in his interests.  She is very willing
to lend her aid in the business.  Besides some little commission to
which she looks forward on the profits, it will tickle her vanity to
be taken for the niece of a military man.

Signor de Chinchilla looked very grim at this suggestion.  He
declared his extreme abhorrence of becoming a party concerned in a
mere swindling trick, and still more of adopting a female adventurer,
no better than she should be, into his family, and thus casting a
stain upon its immaculate purity.  It was not only for himself that
he felt all this soreness; there was a recoil of ignominy on his
ancestors, which would lay their honors level with the dust.  This
morbid delicacy seemed out of season to Pedrillo, who could not help
expressing his contempt of it thus: You must surely be out of your
wits to take the matter up on that footing.  A fine market you bring
your morals to, you dictators from the plough, with your ridiculous
squeamishness!  Now you seem a good sensible man, appealing to me as
he spoke these last words.  Can you believe your ears when you hear
such scruples advanced?  Heaven defend us!  At court, of all the
places in the world, to look at morals through a microscope!  Let
Fortune come under what haggard form she may, they hug her in their
arms, and swear she is a beauty.

My way of thinking was precisely with Pedrillo, and we dinned it so
stoutly into both the captain's ears, as to make him the Spanish
Siren's uncle against nature and inclination.  When we had so far
prevailed over his pride, we all three set about drawing up a new
memorial for the minister, which was revised, with a copious
interlacing of additions and corrections.  I then wrote it out fair,
and Pedrillo carried it to the Arragonian chantress, who that very
evening put it into the hands of Signor Don Rodrigo, telling her
story so artlessly that the secretary, really supposing her the
captain's niece, promised to take up his case.  A few days afterwards
we reaped the fruits of our little project.  Pedrillo came back to
our house with the lofty air of a benefactor.  Good news, said he to
Chinchilla.  The king is going to make a new grant of officers,
places, and pensions; nor will your name be forgotten in the list.
But I am specially commissioned to inquire what present you purpose
making to the Spanish Siren, for the piper must be paid.  As to
myself, I vow and protest that I will not take a farthing; the
pleasure of having contributed to patch up my old master's broken
fortunes is more to me than all the ingots of the Indies.  But it is
not precisely so with our nymph of Albarazin: she has a little Jewish
blood to plead when the Christian precept of loving her neighbor as
herself is preached up to her.  She would pick her own natural
father's pocket; so judge you whether she would be above making a
bargain with a travelling uncle.

She has only to name her own terms, answered Don Annibal.  Whatever
my pension may be, she shall have the third of it annually if she
pleases; I will pledge my word for it; and that proportion ought to
satisfy her craving, if his Catholic Majesty had settled his whole
exchequer on me.  I would as soon take your word as your bond, for my
own part, replied the nimble-footed messenger of Don Rodrigo; I know
that it will stand the assay; but you have to deal with a little
creature who knows herself, and naturally supposes that she knows all
the rest of the world by the same token.  Besides, she would like
better to take it in the lump; two thirds to be paid down, in ready
money.  Why, now how the devil does she mean that I should get the
wherewithal? bawled the captain, in a quandary.  Does she take me for
an auditor of public accounts, or treasurer to a charity?  You cannot
have made her acquainted with my circumstances.  Yes, but I have,
replied Pedrillo; she knows very well that you are poorer than Job;
after what she has heard from me, she could think no otherwise.  But
do not make yourself uneasy; my brain is never at a loss for an
expedient.  I know an old scoundrel of a usurer, who will take ten
per cent. if he can get no more.  You must assign your first year's
pension to him, in acknowledgment for a like valuable consideration
from him, which you will in point of fact receive, only deducting the
above-mentioned interest.  As to security, the lender will take your
castle at Chinchilla, for want of better; there will be no dispute
about that.

The captain declared his readiness to accept the terms, in case of
his being so fortunate as to possess any beneficial interest in the
good things to be given away the next morning.  It happened
accordingly.  He got a government with a pension of three hundred
pistoles.  As soon as the news came, he signed and sealed as
required, settled his little concerns in town, and went off again for
New Castille with a balance of some few pistoles in his favor.




_CHAPTER XIII._

_GIL BLAS COMES ACROSS HIS DEAR FRIEND FABRICIO AT COURT.  GREAT
ECSTASY ON BOTH SIDES.  THEY ADJOURN TOGETHER, AND COMPARE NOTES; BUT
THEIR CONVERSATION IS TOO CURIOUS TO BE ANTICIPATED._

I had contracted a habit of going to the royal palace every morning,
where I lounged away two or three good hours in seeing the good
people pass to and fro; but their aspect was less imposing there than
in other places, as the lesser stars turn pale in the presence of the
sun.

One day, as I was walking back and fore, and strutting about the
apartments, making about as wise a figure there as my neighbors, I
spied out Fabricio, whom I had left at Valladolid in the service of a
hospital director.  It surprised me not a little that he was chatting
familiarly with the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Marquis of Santa
Cruz.  Those two noblemen, if my senses did not deceive me, were
listening with admiration to his prattle.  To crown the whole, he was
as handsomely dressed as a grandee.

Surely I must be mistaken! thought I.  Can this possibly be the son
of Nunez the barber?  More likely it is some young courtier who bears
a strong resemblance to him.  But my suspense was of no long
duration.  The party broke up, and I accosted Fabricio.  He knew me
at once; took me by the hand, and after pressing through the crowd to
get out of the precincts, said, with a hearty greeting, My dear Gil
Blas, I am delighted to see you again.  What are you doing at Madrid?
Are you still at service?  Some place about the court, perhaps?  How
do matters stand with you?  Let me into the history of all that has
happened to you since your precipitate flight from Valladolid.  You
ask a great many questions in a breath, replied I; and we are not in
a fit place for story-telling.  You are in the right, answered he; we
shall be better at home.  Come, I will show you the way; it is not
far hence.  I am quite my own master, with all my comforts about me;
perfectly easy as to the main chance, with a light heart and a happy
temper; because I am determined to see every thing on the bright side.

I accepted the proposal, and Fabricio escorted me.  We stopped at a
house of magnificent appearance, where he told me that he lived.
There was a court to cross; on one side it had a grand staircase
leading to a suit of state apartments, and on the other a small
flight, dark and narrow, whither we betook ourselves to a residence
elevated in a different sense from what he had boasted.  It consisted
of a single room, which my contriving friend had divided into four by
deal partitions.  The first served as an antechamber to the second,
where he lay; of the third he made his closet, of the last his
kitchen.  The chamber and antechamber were papered with maps, and
many a sheet of philosophical discussion; nor was the furniture by
any means unsuitable to the hangings.  There was a large brocade bed
much the worse for wear; tawdry old chairs with coarse yellow
coverings, fringed with Grenada silk of the same color; a table with
gilt feet, and a cloth over it that once aspired to be red, bordered
with tinsel and embroidery tarnished by that old corroder, time; with
an ebony cabinet, ornamented with figures in a clumsy taste of
sculpture.  Instead of a convenient desk, he had a small table in his
closet; and his library was made up with some few books, and a great
many bundles of paper arranged on shelves one above the other the
whole length of the wall.  His kitchen, too modest to put the rest of
the establishment out of countenance, exhibited a frugal assortment
of earthenware and other necessary implements of cookery.

Fabricio, when he had allowed me leisure to philosophize on his
domestic arrangements, begged to know my opinion of his apartments
and his housekeeping, and whether I was not enchanted with them.
Yes, beyond all manner of doubt, answered I, with a roguish smile.
You must have applied your wits to a good purpose at Madrid, to have
got so well accoutred.  Of course you have some post.  Heaven
preserve me from any thing of the sort! replied he.  My line of life
is far above all political situations.  A man of rank, to whom this
house belongs, has given me a room in it, whence I have contrived to
piece out a suit of four, fitted up in such taste as you may see.  I
devote my time to no employments but what are just to my fancy, and
never feel what it is to want.  Explain yourself more intelligibly,
said I, interrupting him.  You set me all agog to be let into your
little arrangements.  Well then! said he, I will rid you of that
devil curiosity at once.  I have commenced author, have plunged
headlong into the ocean of literature; verse and prose run equally
glib; in short, I am a jack of all trades to the muses.

What! you bound in solemn league and covenant to Apollo? exclaimed I,
with most intolerable laughter.  Nothing under a prophet could ever
have anticipated this.  I should have been less surprised at any
other transformation.  What possible delights have you had the
ingenuity to detect in the rugged landscape of Parnassus?  It should
seem as if the laborers there have a very poor taking in civil life,
and feed on a coarse diet without sauce.  Out upon you! cried he, in
dudgeon at the hint.  You are talking of those paltry authors, whose
works and even their persons are under the thumb of booksellers and
players.  Is it any wonder that writers under such circumstances
should be held cheap?  But the good ones, my friend, are on a better
footing in the world; and I think it may be affirmed, vanity apart,
that my name is to be found in their list.  Questionless, said I,
talents like yours are convertible to every purpose; compositions
from such a pen are not likely to be insipid.  But I am on the rack
to know how this rage for fencing with inky weapons could have seized
thee.

Your wonder and alarm has mind in it, replied Nunez.  I was so well
pleased with my situation in the service of Signor Manuel Ordonnez,
that I had no hankering after any other.  But my genius, like that of
Plautus, being too high-minded to contract itself within the sphere
of menial occupations, I wrote a play, and got it acted by a company
then performing at Valladolid.  Though it was not worth the paper it
was scrawled upon, it had more success than many better pieces.
Hence concluded I that the public was a silly bird, and would hatch
any eggs that were put under it.  That modest discovery, with the
consequent madness of incessant composition, alienated my affections
from the hospital.  The love of poetry being stronger than the desire
of accumulation, I determined on repairing to Madrid, as the centre
of every thing distinguished, to form my taste in that school.  The
first thing was to give the governor warning, who parted with me to
his own great sorrow, from a sort of affection the result of similar
propensities.  Fabricio, said he, what possible ground can you have
for discontent?  None at all, sir, I replied; you are the best of all
possible masters, and I am deeply impressed with your kind treatment;
but you know one must follow whithersoever the stars ordain.  I feel
the sacred fire within me, on whose aspiring element my name is to be
wafted to posterity.  What confounded nonsense! rejoined the old
fellow, whose ideas were all pecuniary.  You are already become a
fixture in the hospital, and are made of a metal which may easily be
manufactured into a steward, or by good luck even into a governor.
You are going to give up the great object of life, and to flutter
about its frippery.  So much the worse for you, honest friend!

The governor, seeing how fruitless it was to struggle with my fixed
resolve, paid me my wages, and made me a present of fifty ducats as
an acknowledgment of my services.  Thus, between this supply and what
I had been able to scrape together out of some little commissions,
which were assigned to me from an opinion of my disinterestedness, I
was in circumstances to make a very pretty appearance on my arrival
at Madrid; which I was not negligent in doing, though the literary
tribe in our country are not over-punctilious about decency or
cleanliness.  I soon got acquainted with Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and
the whole set of them; but though they were fine fellows, and thought
so by the public, I chose for my model, in preference, Don Lewis de
Gongora the incomparable, a young bachelor of Cordova, decidedly the
first genius that ever Spain produced.  He will not suffer his works
to be printed during his lifetime, but confines himself to a private
communication among his friends.  What is very remarkable, nature has
gifted him with the uncommon talent of succeeding in every department
of poetry.  His principal excellence is in satire; there he outshines
himself.  He does not resemble, like Lucilius, a muddy stream with a
slimy bottom; but is rather like the Tagus, rolling its transparent
waters over a golden sand.

You give a fine description of this bachelor, said I to Fabricio; and
questionless a character of such merit must have attracted an
infinite deal of envy.  The whole gang of authors, answered he, good
and bad equally, are open-mouthed against him.  He deals in bombast,
says one; aims at double meanings, luxuriates in metaphor, and
affects transposition.  His verses, says another, have all the
obscurity of those which the Salian priests used to chant in their
processions, and which nobody was the wiser for hearing.  There are
others who impute it to him as a fault, to have exercised his genius
at one time in sonnets or ballads, at another in writing, in heroic
stanzas, and in minor efforts of wit alternately, as if he had madly
taken upon himself to eclipse the best writers each in their own
favorite walk.  But all these thrusts of jealousy are successfully
parried, where the muse, which is their mark, becomes the idol of the
great and of the multitude at once.

Under so able a master did I serve my apprenticeship; and, vanity
apart, the preceptor was reflected in the disciple.  So happily did I
catch his spirit, that by this time he would not be ashamed to own
some of my detached pieces.  After his example, I carry my goods to
market at great houses, where the bidding is eager, and the sagacity
of the bidders not difficult to match.  It is true that I have a very
insinuating talent at recitation, which places my compositions in no
disadvantageous light.  In short, I am the dear delight of the
nobility, and live in the most particular intimacy with the Duke of
Medina Sidonia, just as Horace used to live with his jolly companion
Mæcenas.  By such conjuration and mighty magic have I won the name of
author.  You see the method lies within a narrow compass.  Now, Gil
Blas, it is your turn to deliver a round unvarnished tale of your
exploits.

On this hint I spake; and, unlike most narrators, gave all the
important particulars, passing lightly over minute and tiresome
circumstances.  The action of talking, long continued, puts one in
mind of dining.  His ebony cabinet, which served for larder, pantry,
and all possible uses, was ransacked for napkins, bread, a shoulder
of mutton far gone in a decline, with its last and best contents, a
bottle of excellent wine; so that we sat down to table in high
spirits, as friends are wont to do after a long separation.  You
observe, said he, this free and independent manner of life.  I might
find a plate laid for me every day, if I chose it, in the very first
houses; but, besides that the muse often pays me a visit and detains
me within doors, I have a little of Aristippus in my nature.  I can
pass with equal relish from the great and busy world to my retreat,
from all the resources of luxury to the simplicity of my own frugal
board.

The wine was so good that we encroached upon a second bottle.  As a
relish to our fruit and cheese, I begged to be favored with the sight
of something, the offspring of his inspired moments.  He immediately
rummaged among his papers, and read me a sonnet with much energy of
tone.  Yet, with all the advantage of accent and expression, there
was something so uncouth in the arrangement as to baffle all
conjecture about the meaning.  He saw how it puzzled me.  This sonnet
then, said he, is not quite level to your comprehension!  Is not that
the fact?  I owned that I should have preferred a construction
somewhat less forced.  He began laughing at my rusticity.  Well then,
replied he, we will say that this sonnet would confuse clearer heads
than thine; it is all the better for that.  Sonnets, odes, in short,
all compositions which partake of the sublime, are of course the
reverse of the simple and natural; they are enveloped in clouds, and
their darkness constitutes their grandeur.  Let the poet only fancy
that he understands himself, no matter whether his readers understand
him or not.  You are laughing at me, my friend, said I, interrupting
him.  Let poetry be of what species it may, good sense and
intelligible diction are essential to its powers of pleasing.  If
your peerless Gongora is not a little more lucid than yourself, I
protest that his merit will never pass current with me.  Such poets
may entrap their own age into applause, but will never live beyond
it.  Now let me have a taste of your prose.

Nunez showed me a preface which he meant to prefix to a dramatic
miscellany then in the press.  He insisted on having my opinion.  I
like not your prose one atom better than your verse, said I.  Your
sonnet is a roaring deluge of emptiness; and as for your preface, it
is disfigured by a phraseology stolen from languages yet in embryo,
by words not stamped in the mint of general use, by all the
perplexity of a style that does not know what to make of itself.  In
a word, the composition is altogether a thing of your own.  Our
classical and standard books are written in a very different manner.
Poor tasteless wretch! exclaimed Fabricio.  You are not aware that
every prose writer who aspires to the reputation of sentiment and
delicacy in these days, affects this style of his own, these
perplexities and innovations which are a stumbling-block to you.
There are five or six of us, determined reformers of our language,
who have undertaken to turn the Spanish idiom topsy-turvy; and with a
blessing on our endeavors, we will pull it down and build it up
again, in defiance of Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and all the host of
wits who cavil at our new modes of speech.  Our party is strongly
supported in the fashionable world, and we have laid violent hands
upon the pulpit.

After all, continued he, our project is commendable; for, to speak
without prejudice, we have ten times the merit of those natural
writers, who express themselves just like the mob.  I cannot conceive
why so many sensible men are taken with them.  It was all very well
at Athens and at Rome, in a wild and undistinguishing democracy; and
on that principle only could Socrates tell Alcibiades that the last
appeal was to the people in all disputes about language.  But at
Madrid there is a polite and a vulgar usage, so that our courtiers
talk in a different tongue from their tradesmen.  You may assure
yourself that it is so; in fine, this newly invented style is
carrying everything before it, and turning old nature out of doors.
Now I will explain to you by a single instance the difference between
the elegance of our diction and the flatness of theirs.  They would
say, for example, in plain terms, "Ballets incidental to the piece
are an ornament to a play;" but in our mode of expression, we say
more exquisitely, "Ballets incidental to the piece are the very life
and soul of the play."  Now observe that phrase, _life and soul_.
Are you sensible how glowing it is, at the same time how descriptive,
setting before you all the motions of the dancers, as on an
intellectual stage?

I broke in upon my reformer of language with a burst of laughter.
Get along with you, Fabricio, said I; you are a coxcomb of your own
manufacture, with your affected finery of phrase.  And you, answered
he, are a blockhead of nature's clumsy moulding, with your starch
simplicity.  He then went on taunting me with the Archbishop of
Grenada's angry banter on my dismission: "Get about your business!
Go and tell my treasurer to pay you a hundred ducats, and take my
blessing in addition to that sum.  God speed you, good master Gil
Blas!  I heartily pray that you may do well in the world!  There is
nothing to stand in your way but a little better taste."  I roared
out in a still louder explosion of laughter at this lucky hit; and
Fabricio, easily appeased on the score of impiety, as manifested in
the opinion expressed concerning his writings, lost nothing of his
pleasant and propitious temper.  We got to the bottom of our second
bottle, and then rose from the table in fine order for an adventure.
Our first intention was to see what was to be seen upon the Prado;
but passing in front of a liquor-shop, it came into our heads that we
might as well go in.

The company was in general tolerably select at this house of call.
There were two distinct apartments, and the pastime in each was of a
very opposite nature.  One was devoted to games of chance or skill,
the other to literary and scientific discussion; and there were at
that moment two clever men by profession handling an argument most
pertinaciously, before ten or twelve auditors deeply interested in
the discussion.  There was no occasion to join the circle, because
the metaphysical thunder of their logic made itself heard at a more
respectful distance: the heat and passion with which this abstract
controversy was managed made the two philosophers look little better
than madmen.  A certain Eleazar used to cast out devils by tying a
ring to the nose of the possessed: had these learned swine been
ringed in the same manner, how many little imps would have taken wing
out of their nostrils!  Angels and ministers of grace defend us, said
I to my companion; what contortions of gesture, what extravagance of
elocution!  One might as well argue with the town crier.  How little
do we know our natural calling in society!  Very true indeed,
answered he; you have read of Novius, the Roman pawnbroker, whose
lungs went as far beyond the rattle of chariot wheels as his
conscience beyond the rate of legal interest; the Novii must
certainly have been transplanted into Spain, and these fellows are
lineal descendants.  But the hopeless part of the case is, that
though our organs of sense are deafened, our understandings are not
invigorated at their expense.  We thought it best to make our escape
from these braying metaphysicians, and by that prudent motion to
avoid a headache which was just beginning to annoy us.  We went and
seated ourselves in a corner of the other room, whence, as we sipped
our refreshing beverage, all comers and goers were obnoxious to our
criticism.  Nunez was acquainted with almost the whole set.  Heaven
and earth! exclaimed he, the clash of philosophy is as yet but in its
beginning; fresh reinforcements are coming in on both sides.  Those
three men, just on the threshold, mean to let slip the dogs of war.
But do you see those two queer fellows going out?  That little
swarthy, leather-complexioned Adonis, with long, lank hair parted in
the middle with mathematical exactness, is Don Juliano de Villanuno.
He is a young barrister, with more of the prig than the lawyer about
him.  A party of us went to dine with him the other day.  The
occupation we caught him in was singular enough.  He was amusing
himself in his office with making a tall greyhound fetch and carry
the briefs in the causes which were so unfortunate as to have him
retained; and of course the canine _amicus curiæ_ set his fangs
indifferently into the flesh of plaintiff or defendant, tearing law,
equity, precedent, and principle into shreds.  That licentiate at his
elbow, with jolly, pimple-spangled nose and cheeks, goes by the name
of Don Cherubino Tonto.  He is a canon of Toledo, and the greatest
fool that was ever suffered to walk the earth without a keeper.  And
yet he arrays his features in that sort of not quite unmeaning smile,
that you would give him credit for good sense as well as good humor.
His eye has the look of cunning if not of wisdom, and his laugh too
much of sarcasm for an absolute idiot.  One would conclude that he
had a turn for mischief, but kept it down from principle and feeling.
If you wish to take his opinion upon a work of genius, he will hear
it read with so grave and rapt a silence, as nothing but deep thought
and acute mental criticism could justify; but the truth is, that he
comprehends not one word, and therefore can have nothing to say.  He
was of the barrister party.  There were a thousand good things said,
as there always must be in a professional company.  Don Cherubino
added nothing to the mass of merriment, but looked such perfect
approbation at those who did, was so tractable and complimentary a
listener, that every man at table placed him second in the
comparative estimate of merit.

Do you know, said I to Nunez, who those two fellows are, with dirty
clothes and matted hair, their elbows on that table in the corner,
and their cheeks upon their hands, whiffing foul breath into each
other's nostrils as they lay their heads together?  He told me that
by their faces they were strangers to him; but that by physical and
moral tokens they could only be coffee-house politicians, venting
their spleen against the measures of government.  But do look at that
spruce spark, whistling as he paces up and down the other room, and
balancing himself alternately on one toe and on the other.  That is
Don Augustino Moreto, a young poet sufficiently of nature's mint and
coinage to pass current, if flatterers and sciolists had not debased
him into a mere coxcomb by their misplaced admiration.  The man to
whom he is going up with that familiar shake by the hand, is one of
the set who write verses and then call themselves poets; who claim a
speaking acquaintance with the muses, but never were of their private
parties.

Authors upon authors, nothing but authors! exclaimed he, pointing out
two dashing blades.  One would think they had made an appointment on
purpose to pass in review before you.  Don Bernardo Deslenguado and
Don Sebastian of Villa Viciosa!  The first is a vinegar-flavored
vintage of Parnassus, a satirist by trade and company; he hates all
the world, and is not liked the better for his taste.  As for Don
Sebastian, he is the milk and honey of criticism; he would not have
the guilt of ill-nature on his conscience for the universe.  He has
just brought out a comedy without a single idea, which has succeeded
with an audience of tantamount ideas; and he has just now published
it to vindicate his innocence.

Gongora's candid pupil was running on in his career of benevolent
explanation, when one of the Duke de Medina Sidonia's household came
up and said, Signor Don Fabricio, my lord duke wishes to speak with
you.  You will find him at home.  Nunez, who knew that the wishes of
a great lord could not be too soon gratified, left me without
ceremony; but he left me in the utmost consternation, to hear him
called Don, and thus ennobled, in spite of Master Chrysostom the
barber's escutcheon, who had the honor to call him father.




_CHAPTER XIV._

_FABRICIO FINDS A SITUATION FOR GIL BLAS IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
COUNT GALIANO, A SICILIAN NOBLEMAN._

I was too happy in Fabricio's society not to hunt him out again early
the next morning.  Good day to you, Signor Don Fabricio, said I on my
first approach; it seems you are the picked and chosen flower, or
rather, saving your presence, the nondescript excrescence of the
Asturian nobility.  This sarcasm had no other effect than to set him
laughing heartily.  Then the title of Don was not lost upon you!
exclaimed he.  No, indeed, my noble lord, answered I; and you will
give me leave to tell you that when you were recounting your
transformations to me yesterday, you forgot the most extraordinary.
Exactly so, replied he; but to speak sincerely, if I have taken up
that prefix of dignity, it is less to tickle my own vanity, than in
tenderness to that of others.  You know what stuff the Spaniards are
made of; an honest man is no honest man to them, if his honor is not
bolstered up with escutcheons, pedigree, and patrimony.  I may tell
you, moreover, that there are so many gentry, and very queer sort of
gentry too, dubbed Don Francisco, Don Pedro, Don
What-do-you-call-him, or Don Devil, that if they owe their coats of
arms to any herald but their own impudence, modern nobility is a mere
drug in the market, so that a plebeian of nature's ennobling confers
infinite honor on the upstarts of an artificial creation, by herding
with their order.

But let us change the subject, added he.  Last night, supping at the
Duke de Medina Sidonia's, where, among other company, we had Count
Galiano, a great Sicilian nobleman, the conversation turned upon the
ridiculous effects of self-love.  Delighted at having a case in point
by way of illustration, I treated them with the story of the
homilies.  You may well suppose that there was a hearty laugh, and
that the archbishop's dignity was not saved in the concussion; but
the effect was not amiss for you, since the company felt for your
situation; and Count Galiano, after a long string of questions, which
of course I answered to your advantage, commissioned me to introduce
you.  I was just now going to look after you for that purpose.  In
all probability he means to offer you a situation as one of his
secretaries.  I advise you not to hang back.  The count is rich, and
lives away at Madrid, on the scale of an ambassador.  He is said to
have come to court on a negotiation with the Duke of Lerma,
respecting some crown lands which that minister thinks of alienating
in Sicily.  In one word, Count Galiano, though a Sicilian, has every
feature of generosity, fair dealing, and gentlemanly conduct.  You
cannot do better than get upon that nobleman's establishment.  In all
probability the flattering prophecy respecting you at Grenada is to
be fulfilled in his person.

It was my full determination, said I to Nunez, to take my swing about
town and look at men and manners a little, before the harness was
buckled on my back again; but you paint your Sicilian nobleman in
colors which fascinate my imagination and change my purpose.  I
should like to close with him at once.  You will do so very soon,
replied he, or I am much deceived.  We sallied forth together
immediately, and went to the count's, who resided in the house of his
friend, Don Sancho d'Avila, the latter being then in the country.

The court-yard was overrun with pages and footmen in rich and elegant
liveries, while the antechamber was blockaded by esquires, gentlemen,
and various officers of the household.  They were all as fine as
possible, but with so whimsical an assortment of features, that you
might have taken them for a cluster of monkeys dressed up to satirize
the Spanish fashions.  Do what you will, there is a certain class of
men and women in nature, whom no art can trick out into anything
human.

At the very name of Don Fabricio, a lane was formed for my patron,
and I followed in the rear.  The count was in his dressing-gown,
sitting on a sofa and taking his chocolate.  We made our obeisance in
the most respectful manner; while an inclination of the head on his
part, accompanied with a condescending smile, won my heart at once.
It is very wonderful, and yet very common, how the most trifling
notice from the great penetrates the very soul of those who are not
accustomed to it!  They must have behaved like fiends before their
behavior will be complained of.

After taking his chocolate, he recreated himself with the humors of a
large ape, which underwent the name of Cupid: why the ape was made a
god, or the god likened to an ape, the parties concerned can best
answer; the only point of resemblance seemed to be mischief.  At all
events, this hairy brat of the sylvan Venus had so gambolled himself
into his master's good graces, had established such a character for
wit and humor, that the life of society was extinguished in his
absence.  As for Nunez and myself, though we had a better turn for
drollery, we were cunning enough to chime in with the prevailing
taste.  The Sicilian was highly delighted with this, and tore himself
away for a moment from his favorite pastime, just to tell me, My
friend, you have only to say whether you choose to be one of my
secretaries.  If the situation suits you, the salary is two hundred
pistoles a year.  If Don Fabricio gives you a character, that is
enough.  Yes, my lord, cried Nunez, I am not such a cowardly fellow
as Plato, who introduced one of his friends to Dionysius the tyrant,
and then was afraid to back his own recommendation.  But I have no
anxiety about being reproached on that head.

I thanked the poet of the Asturias with a low bow, for having so much
better an opinion of me than Plato had of his friend.  Then
addressing my patron, I assured him of my zeal and fidelity.  No
sooner did this good nobleman perceive his proposal to be acceptable,
than he rang for his steward, and after talking to him apart, said to
me, Gil Blas, I will explain the nature of your post hereafter.
Meanwhile, you have only to follow that right hand man of mine; he
has his orders how to bestow you.  I immediately retreated, leaving
Fabricio behind with the count and Cupid.

The steward, who came from Messina, and proved by all his actions
that he came thence, led the way to his own room, overwhelming me all
the while with the kindness of his reception.  He sent for the tailor
who lived upon the skirts of the household, and ordered him to make
me out of hand a suit of equal magnificence with those of the
principal officers.  The tailor took my measure and withdrew.  As to
lodging, said the native of Messina, I know a room which will just
suit you.  But stay!  Have you breakfasted?  I answered in the
negative.  O, poor shamefaced youth, replied he, why did not you say
so?  Come this way: I will introduce you where, thank heaven, you
have only to ask and have.

So saying, he let me down into the buttery, where we found the clerk
of the kitchen, who was a Neapolitan, and of course a complete match
for his neighbor on the other side of the water.  It might be said of
this pair that they were formed to meet by nature.  This honest clerk
of the kitchen was doing justice to his trade by cramming himself and
five or six hangers on with ham, tongue, sausages, and other savory
compositions, which, besides their own relish, possess the merit of
engendering thirst: we made common cause with these jolly fellows,
and helped them to toss off some of my lord the count's best wines.
While these things were going on in the buttery, kindred exploits
were performing in the kitchen.  The cook, too, was regaling three or
four tradesmen of his acquaintance, who liked good wine as well as
ourselves, nor disdained to stuff their craws with meat pasties and
game: the very scullions were at free quarters, and filched whatever
they pleased.  I fancied myself in a house given up to plunder; and
yet what I saw was comparatively fair and honest.  These little
festivities were laughing matters; but the private transactions of
the family were very serious.




_CHAPTER XV._

_THE EMPLOYMENT OF GIL BLAS IN DON GALIANO'S HOUSEHOLD._

I went away to fetch my movables to my new residence.  On my return
the count was at table with several noblemen and the poet Nunez, who
called about him as if perfectly at home, and took a principal share
in the conversation.  Indeed, he never opened his lips without
applause.  So much for wit!  With that commodity at market, a man may
pay his way in any company.

It was my lot to dine with the gentlemen of the household, who were
served nearly as well as their employer.  After meal-time I withdrew
to ruminate on my lot.  So far so good, Gil Blas! said I to myself:
here you are in the family of a Sicilian count, of whose character
you know nothing.  To judge by appearances, you will be as much in
your element as a duck upon the water.  But do not make too sure!
You ought to look askew at your horoscope, whose unkindly position
you have too often experienced with a vengeance.  Independent of
that, it is not easy to conjecture what he means you to do.  There
are secretaries and a steward already: where can your post be?  In
all likelihood you are intended to manage his little private affairs.
Well and good!  There is no better luck about the house of a great
nobleman, if you would travel post haste to make your fortune.  In
the performance of more honorable services, a man gets on only step
by step, and even at that pace often sticks by the way.

While these philosophical reflections were revolving in my mind, a
servant came to tell me that all the company was gone home, and that
my lord the count was inquiring for me.  I flew immediately to his
apartment, where I found him lolling on the sofa, ready to take his
afternoon's nap, with his monkey by his side.

Come nearer, Gil Blas, said he; take a chair, and hear me
attentively.  I placed myself in an attitude of profound listening,
when he addressed me as follows: Don Fabricio has informed me that,
among other good qualities, you have that of sincere attachment to
your masters, and incorruptible integrity.  These are my inducements
for proposing to take you into my service.  I stand in need of a
friend in a domestic, to espouse my interests and apply his whole
heart and soul to the reform of my establishment.  My fortune is
large, it must be confessed, but my expenditure far exceeds my income
every year.  And how happens that?  Because they rob, ransack, and
devour me.  I might as well be in a forest infested by banditti, as
an inhabitant of my own house.  I suspect the clerk of the kitchen
and my steward of playing into one another's hands; and unless my
thoughts are unjust as well as uncharitable, they are pushing forward
as fast as they can to ruin me beyond redemption.  You will ask me
what I have to do but send them packing, if I think them scoundrels.
But then where are others to be got of a better breed?  It will be
sufficient to place them under the eye of a man who shall be invested
with the right of control over their conduct; and you have I chosen
to execute this commission.  If you discharge it well, be assured
that your services will not be repaid with ingratitude.  I shall take
care to provide you with a very comfortable settlement in Sicily.

With this he dismissed me, and that very evening, in the presence of
the whole household, I was proclaimed principal manager and
surveyor-general of the family.  Our gentlemen of Messina and Naples
expressed no particular chagrin at first, because they considered me
as a spark of mettle like their own, and took it for granted, that
though the loaf was to be shared with a third, there would always be
cut and come again for the triumvirate.  But they looked
inexpressibly foolish the next day, when I declared myself in serious
terms a decided enemy to all peculation and underhand dealing.  From
the clerk of the kitchen I required the buttery accounts without
varnish or concealment.  I went down into the cellar.  The furniture
of the butler's pantry underwent a strict examination, particularly
in the articles of plate and linen.  Next I read them a serious
lecture on the duty of acting for their employer as they would for
themselves; exhorted them to adopt a system of economy in their
expenditure; and wound up my harangue with a protestation that his
lordship should be acquainted with the very first instance of any
unfair tricks that I should discover in the exercise of my office.

But I had not yet got to the length of my tether.  There was still
wanting a scout to ascertain whether they had any private
understanding.  I fixed upon a scullion, who, won over by my
promises, told me that I could not have applied to a better person to
be informed of all that was passing in the family; that the clerk of
the kitchen and the steward were one as good as the other, and agreed
to burn the candle at both ends; that half the provisions bought for
the table were made perquisites by these gentlemen; that the
Neapolitan kept a lady who lives opposite St. Thomas's College, and
his colleague, not to be outdone, provided for another next door to
the Sungate; that these two nymphs had their larder regularly
supplied every morning, while the cook, following a good example,
sent a few little nice things to a widow of his acquaintance in the
neighborhood; but as he winked at the table arrangements of his dear
and confidential friends, it was but fair that he should draw
whenever he pleased upon the wine-cellar; in short, by the practices
of these three blood-suckers, a most horrible system of extravagance
had found its way into my lord the count's establishment.  If you
doubt my veracity, added the scullion, only take the trouble of going
to-morrow morning about seven o'clock into the neighborhood of St.
Thomas's College, and you will see me with a load upon my back, which
will convert your suspicions into certainty.  Then you, said I, are
in the confidence of these honest purveyors?  I am factor to the
clerk of the kitchen, answered he; and one of my comrades runs on
errands for the steward.

I had the curiosity the next day to loiter about St. Thomas's College
at the appointed hour.  My informer was punctual to time and place.
He brought with him a large tray full of butcher's meat, poultry, and
game.  I took an account of every article, and drew out the bill of
fare in my memorandum book, for the purpose of showing it to my
master, at the same time telling my little turnspit to execute his
commission as usual.

His Sicilian lordship, naturally warm in his temper, would have
turned his countryman and the Italian out of doors together, in the
first fury of his anger; but after cooling upon it, he got rid of the
former only, and gave me his vacant place.  Thus my office of
supervisor was suppressed very shortly after its creation; nor did I
relinquish it with any reluctance.  To define it strictly and
properly, it was nothing better than that of a spy with a sounding
title; there was nothing substantial in the nature of the
appointment: whereas, to the stewardship was tied the key of the
strong box, and with that goes the mystery of the whole family.
There are so many little perquisites, and so much patronage attached
to that department of administration, that a man must inevitably get
rich, almost in spite of his own honesty.

But our Neapolitan was not so easily to be driven from his
strongholds.  Observing to what a pitch of savage zeal I carried my
integrity, and that I was up every morning time enough to enter in my
books the exact quantity of meat that came from market, he abandoned
the practice of sending it off by wholesale; yet the plunderer did
not therefore contract the scale of his demands on the animal
creation.  He was cunning enough to make it as broad as it was long,
by arranging the services with so much the more profusion.  Thus,
what was sent down again untouched being his property by culinary
common law, he had nothing to do but to pamper up his pet with
victuals ready dressed, instead of giving her the trouble of cooking
for herself.  The devil will levy his due out of every transaction,
so that the count was very little the better for his paragon of a
steward.  The unbounded prodigality in our style of setting out a
table, even to a surfeiting degree, was a plain hint to me of what
was going forward: I therefore took upon myself to retrench the
superfluities of every course.  This, however, was done with so
judicious a hand, that there was nothing like parsimony to be
discovered.  No one would ever have missed what was taken away; and
yet the expense was reduced very considerably by a well-regulated
economy.  That was just what my employer wanted; good housewifery,
but a magnificent establishment.  There was a love of saving at the
bottom, but a taste for grandeur was the ostensible passion.

Abuses seldom exist alone.  The wine flowed too freely.  If, for
instance, there were a dozen gentlemen at his lordship's table, the
consumption was seldom less than fifty, sometimes sixty bottles.
This was strange, and looked as if there was more in it than met the
lips of the guests.  Hereupon I consulted my oracle of the scullery,
whence I derived most of my wisdom; for he brought me a faithful
account of all that was said and done in the kitchen, where they had
not the least suspicion of him.  It seemed that the havoc of which I
complained proceeded from a new confederacy between the clerk of the
kitchen, the cook, and the under butler.  The latter carried off the
bottles half full, and shared their contents with his allies.  I
spoke to him on the subject, threatening to turn him and all the
footmen under him out of doors at a minute's warning, if ever they
did the like again.  The hint was understood, and the evil remedied.
I took especial care lest the slightest of my services should be lost
upon my master, who overwhelmed me with commendations, and took a
greater liking to me every day.  On my part, as a reward to the
scullion, he was promoted to the situation next under the cook.

The Neapolitan was furious at encountering me in every direction.
The most aggravating circumstance of the whole was the overhauling of
his accounts; for, to pare his nails the closer, I had gone into the
market, and informed myself of the prices.  I followed him through
all his doublings, and always took off the market penny which he
wanted to add.  He must have cursed me a hundred times a day; but the
curses of the wicked fall in blessings on the good.  I wonder how he
could stay in his place under such discipline; but probably something
still stuck by the fingers.

Fabricio, whom I saw occasionally, rather blamed my conduct than
otherwise.  Heaven grant, said he, one day, that all this virtue may
meet with its reward!  But between ourselves, you might as well be a
little more practicable with the clerk of the kitchen.  What!
answered I, shall this freebooter put a bold face upon the matter,
and charge a fish at ten pistoles in his bill which cost only four?
and would you have me pass the articles in my accounts?  Why not?
replied he, coolly.  He has only to let you go snacks in the
commission, and the books will be balanced in your favor by the
customary rule of stewardship arithmetic.  Upon my word, my friend,
you are enough to overturn all regular systems of housekeeping; and
you are likely to end your days in a livery, if you let the eel slip
through your fingers without skinning it.  You are to learn that
fortune is a very woman, ready and eager to surrender, but expecting
the formality of a summons.

I only laughed at this doctrine, and Nunez laughed at it too, when he
found that bad advice was thrown away upon an incorrigibly honest
subject.  He then wished to make me believe it was all a mere joke.
At all events, nothing could shake my resolution to act for my
employer as for myself.  Indeed, my actions corresponded with my
words on that subject; for I may venture to say that in four months
my master saved at least three thousand ducats by my thrift.




_CHAPTER XVI._

_AN ACCIDENT HAPPENS TO THE COUNT DE GALIANO'S MONKEY; HIS LORDSHIP'S
AFFLICTION ON THAT OCCASION.  THE ILLNESS OF GIL BLAS, AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES._

At the expiration of the before-mentioned time, the repose of the
family was marvellously troubled by an accident, which will appear
but a trifle to the reader, and yet it was a very serious matter to
the household, especially to me.  Cupid, the monkey of whom I was
speaking, that animal so much the idol of our lord and master,
attempting to leap from one window to another, performed so ill as to
fall into the court and put his leg out of joint.  No sooner were the
fatal tidings carried to the count, than he sung a dirge which pealed
through all the neighborhood.  In the extremity of his sufferings,
every inmate without exception was taken to task, and we were all
within an inch of being packed off about our business.  But the storm
only rumbled, without falling; he gave us and our negligence to the
devil, without being by any means select in the terms of the bequest.
The most notorious of the faculty in the line of fractures and
dislocations were sent for.  They examined the poor dear leg, set,
and bound it up.  But though they all gave it as their opinion that
there was no danger, my master could not be satisfied without
retaining the most eminent about the person of the animal, till he
could be pronounced to be in a state of convalescence.

It would be a manifest injustice to the family affections of his
Sicilian lordship, not to commemorate all the agonizing sensations of
his soul during this period of painful suspense.  Would it be thought
possible that this tender nurse did not stir from his darling Cupid's
bedside all the livelong day?  The bandages were never altered or
adjusted but in his presence, and he got up two or three times in the
night to enquire after his patient.  The most provoking part of the
business was, that all the servants, and myself in particular, were
required to be eternally on the alert, to anticipate the slightest
wishes of this ridiculous baboon.  In short, there was no peace in
the house, till the cursed beast, having recovered from the effects
of its fall, got back again to his old tricks and whirligigs.  After
this, shall we be mealy-mouthed about believing Suetonius, when he
tells us that Caligula cared more for his horse than for all the
world besides, that he gave him more than the establishment and
attendance of a senator, and that he even wanted to make him consul?
Our wise master stopped little short of the emperor in his partiality
to the monkey, and had serious thoughts of purchasing for him the
place of corregidor.

Mine was the worst luck of any in the family; for I had so topped my
part above all the other servants, by way of paying my court to his
lordship, and had nursed poor dear Cupid with such assiduity, as to
throw myself into a fit of illness.  A violent fever seized me, so
that I was almost at death's door.  They did what they pleased with
me for a whole fortnight, without my consciousness; for the
physicians and the fates were both conspiring against me.  But my
youth was more than a match for the fever and the prescriptions
united.  When I recovered my senses, the first use I made of them was
to observe myself removed to another room.  I wanted to know why, and
asked an old woman who nursed me; but she told me that I must not
talk, as the physician had expressly forbidden it.  When we are well,
we turn up our noses at the doctors; but when we are sick, we are as
much like old women as themselves.

It seemed best therefore to keep silence, though with an inveterate
longing to hold converse with my attendant.  I was debating the point
in my own mind, when there came in two foppish-looking fellows,
dressed in the very extreme of fashion.  Nothing less than velvet
would serve their turn, with linen and lace to correspond.  They
looked like men of rank; and I could have sworn that they were some
of my master's friends come to see me out of regard for him.  Under
that impression I attempted to sit up, and flung away my nightcap to
look genteel; but the nurse forced me under the bedclothes again, and
tucked me up, announcing these gentlemen, at the same time, as my
physician and apothecary.

The doctor came up to my bedside, felt my pulse, looked in my face,
and, discovering undeniable symptoms of approaching convalescence,
assumed an air of triumph, as if it was all his handiwork, and said
there was nothing wanting but to keep the bowels open, and then he
flattered himself he might boast of having performed an extraordinary
cure.  Speaking after this manner, he dictated a prescription to the
apothecary, looking in the glass all the time, adjusting the dress of
his hair, and twisting his visage into shapes which set me laughing
in spite of my debility.  At length he took his leave with a slight
inclination of the head, and went his way, more taken with the
contemplation of his own pretty person, than anxious about the
success of his remedies.

After his departure, the apothecary, not to have the trouble of a
visit for nothing, made ready to proceed as it is prescribed in
certain cases.  Whether he was afraid that the old woman's skill was
not equal to the exigency, or whether he meant to enhance his own
services by assiduity, he chose to operate in person; but in spite of
practice and experience, accidents will happen.  Haste to return
benefits is among the most amiable propensities of our nature; and
such was my eagerness not to be behindhand with my benefactor, that
his velvet dress bore immediate testimony to the profuseness of my
gratitude.  This he considered merely as one of those little
occurrences which checker the fortunes of the pharmaceutical
profession.  A napkin is a resource for every thing in a sick room,
and least said was soonest mended; so he wiped himself quietly,
vowing indemnity and vengeance to himself for the necessity under
which he unquestionably labored of sending his clothes to the scourer.

On the following morning he returned to the attack more modestly
equipped, though there was then no risk of my springing a
countermine, as he had only to administer the potion which the doctor
had prescribed the evening before.  Besides that I felt myself
getting better every moment, I had taken such a dislike, since the
day before, to the pill-dispensing tribe, as to curse the very
universities where these graduated cutthroats kept their exercises in
the faculty of slaying.  In this temper of mind, I declared, with a
round oath, that I would not accept of health through such a medium,
but would willingly make over Hippocrates and his myrmidons to the
devil.  The apothecary, who did not care a doit what became of his
compound, if it was but paid for, left the phial on the table, and
stalked away in Telamonian silence.

I immediately ordered that bitch of a medicine to be thrown out of
window, having set myself so doggedly against it, that I would as
soon have swallowed arsenic.  Having once drawn the sword, I threw
away the scabbard; and erecting my tongue into an independent
potentate, told my nurse in a determined tone that she must
absolutely inform me what was become of my master.  The old lady,
fearing lest the development of the mystery might completely overset
me, or thinking possibly that her prey might escape out of her
clutches for want of a little irritating contradiction, was most
provokingly mute; but I was so pressing in my demand to be obeyed,
that she at length gave me a decisive answer: Worthy sir, you have no
longer any master but your own will.  Count Galiano is gone back into
Sicily.

I could not believe my ears; and yet it was fatally the fact.  That
nobleman, on the second day of my indisposition, being afraid of
harboring death under the same roof with him, had the benevolence to
send me packing with my little effects to a ready-furnished room,
where providence was left to cure, or a nurse to kill me, as it
happened.  While the alternative was tottering on the balance, he was
ordered back into Sicily, and in the headlong haste of his obedience,
never thought about me; whether it was that he numbered me already
among the dead, or that great lords, like great wits, have short
memories.

My nurse gave me these particulars, and informed me that it was she
who had called in a physician and an apothecary, that I might not die
without professional honors.  I fell into profound musing at this
fine story.  Farewell my brilliant establishment in Sicily!  Farewell
my budding hopes and blushing honors!  When any great misfortune
shall have befallen you, says a certain pope, look well to your own
conduct, and you will find that there is always something wrong at
the bottom of it.  With all reverent submission to his holiness, I
cannot help thinking myself in this instance an exception to the
infallibility of his maxim.  How the deuce was I to blame for being
visited by a fever?  There was more reason for remorse in the monkey
or his master than in me.

When I beheld the flattering chimeras with which my head was filled
all vanishing into air, into thin air, the first thing that worried
my poor brain was my portmanteau, which I ordered to be laid upon my
bed to examine it.  I groaned heavily on discovering that it had been
opened.  Alas! my dear portmanteau, exclaimed I, my only hope,
consolation, and refuge!  You have been, to all appearance, a
prisoner in an enemy's country.  No, no, Signor Gil Blas, said the
old woman; make yourself easy on that head; you have not fallen among
thieves.  Your baggage is as immaculate as my honor.

I found the dress I had on at my first entrance into the count's
service; but it was in vain to look for that which my friend from
Messina had ordered for me as a member of the household.  My master
had not thought fit to leave me in possession of it, or else some one
had made free with it.  All my other little matters were safe, and
even a large leather purse with my coin in it, which I counted over
twice, not being able to believe at first that there could be only
fifty pistoles remaining out of two hundred and sixty, which was the
balance of the account before my illness.  What is the meaning of all
this, my good lady? said I to the nurse.  Here is a leak in the
vessel.  No living soul but myself has touched a farthing, answered
the old woman, and I have been as good an economist for you as
possible.  But illness is very expensive; one must always have one's
money in one's hand.  Here! added this excellent economist, taking a
bundle of papers out of her pocket, this is a statement of debtor and
creditor, as exact as a banker's book, and you will see that I have
not laid out the veriest trifle in need-nots.

I ran over the account with a hasty glance; for it extended to
fifteen or twenty pages.  Mercy on us!  The poulterers' shops must
have been exhausted, while I was in too weak a state to take
sustenance!  There must have been at least twelve pistoles stewed
down into broths.  Other articles were much to the same tune.  It was
incredible what a sum had been lavished in firing, candles, water,
brooms, and innumerable articles of house-keeping and house-cleaning.
After all, extortionate as the bill was, the utmost ingenuity could
not raise it above thirty pistoles, and consequently there was a
deficiency of a hundred and eighty to make the account even.  I just
ventured to point that out; but the old woman, with a show of
simplicity and candor, put all the saints in the calendar into
requisition to attest that there were no more than eighty pistoles in
the purse when the count's steward gave her charge of the wallet.
What say you, my good woman? interrupted I with precipitation: was it
the steward who placed my effects in your hands?  To be sure it was,
answered she; the very man; and with this piece of advice: Here, good
mother; when Gil Blas shall be numbered with the dead, do not fail to
treat him with a handsome funeral: there is in this wallet
wherewithal to defray the expenses.

Ah! most pestiferous Neapolitan! exclaimed I in the bitterness of my
heart.  I am no longer at a loss to conjecture what is become of the
deficiency.  You have swept it off as an indemnity for a part of the
plunder which I have prevented you from making free with.  After
relieving my mind by exclamations, I returned thanks to heaven that
the scoundrel had been so modest as not to take the whole.  Yet
whatever reason I had for believing the action to be perfectly in
character for the person to whom it was imputed, the nurse had not
altogether cleared herself from my suspicions.  They hovered
sometimes over one and sometimes over the other; but let them light
where they would, it was all the same to me.  I said nothing about
the matter to the old woman; not even so much as to haggle about the
items of her fine bill.  I should not have been an atom the richer
for doing so; and we must all live by our trades.  The utmost of my
malice was to pay her and send her packing three days afterwards.

I am inclined to think that at her departure she gave the apothecary
notice of her quitting the premises, and having left me sufficiently
in possession of myself to take French leave without acknowledging my
obligations to him; for she had not been gone many minutes before he
came in puffing and blowing, with his bill in his hand.  There, under
names which had escaped my conscription, though as arrant a physician
as the worst of them, he had set down all the hypothetical remedies
which he insisted that I had taken during the time when I could take
nothing.  This bill might truly be called the epitome of an
apothecary's conscience.  Such being the case, we had a bustle about
the payment.  I pleaded for an abatement of one half.  He swore that
he would not take a doit less than his just demand.  He kept his
oath, and yet relaxed; for considering that he had to do with a young
man who might run away from Madrid within four-and-twenty hours, he
preferred my offer of three hundred per cent. on the prime cost of
his drugs, though a pitiful profit for an apothecary, to the risk of
losing all.  I counted out the money with an aching heart, and he
withdrew, chuckling over his revenge for the scurvy trick I had
played him on the day of evacuation.

The physician made his appearance next; for beasts of prey inhabit
the same latitudes.  I fee'd him for his visits, which had been quite
as frequent as necessary, and his object was answered.  But he would
not leave me without proving how hardly he had earned his money, for
that he had not only expelled the enemy from the interior, but had
defended the frontiers from the attack of all the disorders on the
army list of the _materia medica_.  He talked very learnedly, with
good emphasis and discretion; so much so, that I did not comprehend
one word he said.  When I had got rid of him, I flattered myself that
the destinies had now done their worst.  But I was mistaken; for
there came a surgeon whose face I had never seen in the whole course
of my life.  He accosted me very politely, and congratulated me on
the imminent danger I had escaped; attributing the happy issue of my
complaints to those which he had himself cut, with the profuse
application of bleeding, cupping, blistering, and all sorts of
torments, consequent and inconsequent.  Another feather out of my
poor wing!  I was obliged to pay toll to the surgeon also.  After so
many purgatives, my purse was brought to such a state of debility,
that it might be considered as dead and gone; a mere skeleton,
drained of all its vital juices.  My spirits began to flag, on the
contemplation of my wretched case.  In the service of my two last
masters I had wedded myself to the pomps and vanities of this wicked
world, and could no longer, as heretofore, look poverty in the face
with the sternness of a cynic.  It must be owned, however, that I was
in the wrong to give way to melancholy, after experiencing so often
that fortune had never cast me down, but for the purpose of raising
me up again; so that my pitiful plight at the present moment, if
rightly considered, was only to be hailed as the harbinger of
approaching prosperity.




BOOK THE EIGHTH.



_CHAPTER I._

_GIL BLAS SCRAPES AN ACQUAINTANCE OF SOME VALUE, AND FINDS
WHEREWITHAL TO MAKE HIM AMENDS FOR THE COUNT DE GALIANO'S
INGRATITUDE.  DON VALERIO DE LUNA'S STORY._

It seemed so strange to have heard not a syllable from Nunez during
this long interval, that I concluded he must be in the country.  I
went to look after him as soon as I could walk, and found the fact to
be, that he had gone into Andalusia three weeks ago, with the Duke of
Medina Sidonia.

One morning, when rubbing my eyes after a sound sleep, Melchior de la
Ronda started into my recollection; and that bringing to mind my
promise, at Grenada, of going to see his nephew, if ever I should
return to Madrid, it seemed advisable not to defer fulfilling my
promise for a single day.  I inquired where Don Balthazar de Zuniga
lived, and went thither straightway.  On asking if Signor Joseph
Navarro was at home, he made his appearance immediately.  We
exchanged bows with a well-bred coolness on his part, though I had
taken care to announce my name audibly.  There was no reconciling
such a frosty reception with the glowing portrait ascribed to this
paragon of the buttery.  I was just going to withdraw in the full
determination of not coming again, when, assuming all at once an open
and smiling aspect, he said, with considerable earnestness, Ah!
Signor Gil Blas de Santillane, pray forgive the formality of your
welcome.  My memory ill seconded the warmth of my disposition towards
you.  Your name had escaped me, and was not at the moment identified
with the gentleman of whom mention was made in a letter from Grenada
more than four months ago.

How happy I am to see you! added he, shaking hands with me most
cordially.  My uncle Melchior, whom I love and honor like my natural
father, charges me, if by chance I should have the honor of seeing
you, to entertain you as his own son, and in case of need, to stretch
my own credit and that of my friends to the utmost in your behalf.
He extols the qualities of your heart and mind in terms sufficient of
themselves to engage me in your service, though his recommendation
had not been added to the other motives.  Consider me, therefore, I
entreat you, as participating in all my uncle's sentiments.  You may
depend on my friendship; let me hope for an equal share in yours.

I replied to Joseph's polite assurances in suitable terms of
acknowledgment; so that, being both of us warm-hearted and sincere, a
close intimacy sprung up without waiting for common forms.  I felt no
embarrassment about laying open the state of my affairs.  This I had
no sooner done, than he said, I take upon myself the care of finding
you a situation; meanwhile, there is a knife and fork for you here
every day.  You will live rather better than at an ordinary.  This
offer was sure to be well relished by an invalid just recovering,
with a fastidious palate and an empty pocket.  It could not but be
accepted; and I picked up my crumbs so fast that at the end of a
fortnight I began to look like a rosy-gilled son of the church.  It
struck me that Melchior's nephew larded his lean sides to some
purpose.  But how could it be otherwise? he had three strings to his
bow, as holding the undermentioned pluralities: the butler's place,
the clerkship of the kitchen, and the stewardship.  Furthermore,
without meaning to question my friend's honesty, they do say that the
comptroller of the household and he looked over each other's hands.

My recovery was entirely confirmed, when my friend Joseph, on my
coming in to dinner as usual one day, said, with an air of
congratulation, Signor Gil Blas, I have a very tolerable situation in
view for you.  You must know that the Duke of Lerma, first minister
of the crown in Spain, giving himself up entirely to state affairs,
throws the burden of his own on two confidential persons.  Don Diego
de Monteser takes the charge of collecting his rents, and Don Rodrigo
de Calderona superintends the finances of his household.  These two
officers are paramount in their departments, having nothing to do
with one another.  Don Diego has generally two deputies to transact
the business; and finding just now that one of them had been
discharged, I have been canvassing for you.  Signor Monteser, having
the greatest possible regard for me, granted my request at once, on
the strength of my testimony to your morals and capacity.  We will
pay our respects to him after dinner.

We did not miss our appointment.  I was received with every mark of
favor, and promoted in the room of the dismissed deputy.  My business
consisted in visiting the farms, in giving orders for the necessary
repairs, in dunning the farmers, and keeping them to time in their
payments; in a word, the tenants were all under my thumb, and Don
Diego checked my accounts every month with a minuteness which few
receivers could have borne.  But this was exactly what I wanted.
Though my uprightness had been so ill requited by my late master, it
was my only inheritance, and I was determined not to sell the
reversion.

One day news came that the castle of Lerma had taken fire, and was
more than half burned down.  I immediately went thither to estimate
the loss.  Informing myself to a nicety, and on the spot, respecting
all the particulars of the unlucky accident, I drew up a detailed
narrative, which Monteser showed to the Duke of Lerma.  That
minister, though vexed at the circumstance, was struck with the
memorial, and inquired who was the author.  Don Diego thought it not
enough to answer the question, but spoke of me in such high terms,
that his excellency recollected it six months afterwards, on occasion
of an incident I shall now relate, had it not been for which I might
never, perhaps, have been employed at court.  It was as follows:--

There lived at that time, in Princes Street, an elderly lady, by name
Inesilla de Cantarilla.  Her birth was a matter of mystery.  Some
said she was the daughter of a musical instrument maker, and others
gave her a high military extraction.  However that might be, she was
a very extraordinary personage.  Nature had gifted her with the
singular talent of winning men's hearts in defiance of time, and in
contradiction to her own laws; for she was now entering upon the
fourth quarter of her century.  She had been the reigning toast of
the old court, and levied tribute on the passions of the new.  Age,
though at daggers drawn with beauty, was completely foiled in its
assault upon her charms; they might be somewhat faded, but the touch
of sympathy they excited in their decline was more pleasing than the
vivid glow of their meridian lustre.  An air of dignity, a
transporting wit and humor, an unborrowed grace in her deportment
perpetuated the reign of passion, and silenced the suggestions of
reason.

Don Valerio de Luna, one of the Duke of Lerma's secretaries, a young
fellow of five-and-twenty, meeting with Inesilla, fell violently in
love with her.  He made his sentiments known, enacted all the mummery
of despair, and followed up the usual catastrophe of every amorous
drama so much according to the unities and rules, that it was
difficult, in the very torrent and whirlwind of his passion, to beget
a temperance that might give it smoothness.  The lady, who had her
reason for not choosing to fall in with his humor, was at a loss how
to get out of the difficulty.  One day she was in hopes to have found
the means by calling the young man into her closet, and there
pointing to a clock upon the table.  Mark the precise hour, said she;
just seventy-five years ago was I brought upon the stage of this
fantastical world.  In good earnest would it sit well upon my time of
life to be engaged in affairs of gallantry?  Betake yourself to
reflection, my good child; stifle sentiments so unsuitable to your
own circumstances and mine.  Sensible as this language was, the
spark, no longer bowing to the authority of reason, answered the lady
with all the impetuosity of a man racked by the most excruciating
torments: Cruel Inesilla, why have you recourse to such frivolous
remonstrances?  Do you think they can change your charms, or my
desires?  Delude not yourself with so false a hope.  As long as your
loveliness or my delusion lasts, I shall never cease to adore you.
Well, then, rejoined she, since you are obstinate enough to persist
in the resolution of wearying me with your importunities, my doors
shall henceforth be shut against you.  You are banished, and I beg to
be no longer troubled with your company.

It may be supposed, perhaps, that after this, Don Valerio, baffled,
made good his retreat, like a prudent general.  Quite the reverse!
He became more troublesome than ever.  Love is to lovers just what
wine is to drunkards.  The swain entreated, sighed, looked, and
sighed again, when all at once, changing his note from childish
treble to the big, manly voice of bluster and ravishment, he swore
that he would have by foul means what he could not obtain by fair.
But the lady, repulsing him courageously, said, with a piercing look
of strong resentment, Hold, imprudent wretch!  I shall put a curb on
your mad career.  Learn that you are my own son.

Don Valerio was thunderstruck at these words; the tempest of his rage
subsided.  But, conjecturing that Inesilla had only started this
device to rid herself of his solicitations, he answered, That is a
mere romance of the moment to steal away from my ardent desires.  No,
no, said she, interrupting him; I disclose a mystery which should
have been forever buried, had you not reduced me to so painful a
necessity.  It is six-and-twenty years since I was in love with your
father, Don Pedro de Luna, then governor of Segovia; you were the
fruit of our mutual passion; he owned you, brought you up with care
and tenderness, and having no children born in wedlock, he had
nothing to hinder him from distinguishing your good qualities by the
gifts of fortune.  On my part, I have not forsaken you: as soon as
you were of an age to be introduced into the world, I drew you into
the circle of my acquaintance, to form your manners to that polish of
good company, so necessary for a gentleman, which is only to be
gained in female society.  I have done more: I have employed all my
credit to introduce you to the prime minister.  In short, I have
interested myself for you as I should have done for my own son.
After this confession, take your measures accordingly.  If you can
purge your affections from their dross, and look on me as a mother,
you are not banished from my presence, and I shall treat you with my
accustomed tenderness.  But if you are not equal to an effort which
nature and reason demand from you, fly instantly, and release me from
the horror of beholding you.

Inesilla spoke to this effect.  Meanwhile Don Valerio preserved a
sullen silence; it might have been interpreted into a virtuous
struggle, a conquest over the weakness of his heart.  But his
purposes were far different; he had another scene to act before his
mother.  Unable to withstand the total overthrow of all his wild
projects, he basely yielded to despair.  Drawing his sword, he
plunged it in his own bosom.  His fate resembled that of Œdipus,
with this distinction--that the Theban put out his own eyes from
remorse for the crime he had perpetrated, while the Castilian, on the
contrary, committed suicide from disappointment at the frustration of
his purposes.

The unhappy Don Valerio was not released from his sufferings
immediately.  He had leisure left for recollection, and for making
his peace with heaven, before he rushed into the presence of his
Maker.  As his death vacated one of the secretaryships on the Duke of
Lerma's establishment, that minister, not having forgotten my memoir
on the subject of the fire, nor the high character he had heard of
me, nominated me to succeed to the post in question.




_CHAPTER II._

_GIL BLAS IS INTRODUCED TO THE DUKE OF LERMA, WHO ADMITS HIM AMONG
THE NUMBER OF HIS SECRETARIES, AND REQUIRES A SPECIMEN OF HIS
TALENTS, WITH WHICH HE IS WELL SATISFIED._

Monteser was the person to inform me of this agreeable circumstance,
which he did in the following terms: My friend Gil Blas, though I do
not lose you without regret, I am too much your well-wisher not to be
delighted at your promotion in the room of Don Valerio.  You cannot
fail to make a princely fortune, provided you act upon two hints
which I have to give you; the first, to affect so total a devotion to
his excellency's good pleasure, as to leave no room to conceive it
possible that you have any other object or interest in life; the
second, to pay your court assiduously to Signor Don Rodrigo de
Calderona, for that personage models and remodels, fashions and
touches upon the mind of his master, just as if it was clay under the
hands of the designer.  If you are fortunate enough to chime in with
that favorite secretary, you will travel post to wealth and honor,
and find relays upon the road.

Sir, said I to Don Diego, returning him thanks at the same time for
his good advice, be pleased to give some little opening to Don
Rodrigo's character.  I have heard a few anecdotes of him.  One would
suppose him, from some accounts, not to be the best creature in the
world; but the people at large are inveterate caricaturists when they
draw courtiers at full length; though, after all, the likeness will
strike, in spite of the aggravation.  Tell me therefore, I beseech
you, what is your own sincere opinion of Signor Calderona.  That is
rather an awkward question, answered my principal, with an ironical
smile.  I should tell any one but yourself, without flinching, that
he was a gentleman of the strictest honor, upon whose fair fame the
breath of calumny had never dared to blow; but I really cannot put
off such a copy of my countenance upon you.  Relying as I do on your
discretion, it becomes a duty to deal candidly in the delineation of
Don Rodrigo; for without that, it would be playing fast and loose
with you to recommend the cultivation of his good will.

You are to know, then, that when his excellency was no more than
plain Don Francisco de Sandoval, this man had the humility to serve
him as his lackey; since which time he has risen by degrees to the
post of principal secretary.  A prouder excrescence of the dunghill
never sprung into vegetation on a summer's day.  He considers himself
as the Duke of Lerma's colleague; and in point of fact, he may truly
be said to parcel out the loaves and fishes of administration, since
he gives away offices and governments at the suggestions of his own
caprice.  The public grumbles and growls upon occasion; but who cares
for the grumbling and growling of the public?  Let him steal a pair
of gloves from the prostitution of political honor, and the bronze
upon his forehead will be proof against the peltings of scandal.
What I have said will decide your dealings toward so supercilious a
compound of dust and ashes.  Yes, to be sure, said I; leave me alone
for that.  It will be strange indeed if I cannot wriggle myself into
his good graces.  If one can but get on the blind side of a man who
is to be made a property, it must be want of skill in the player if
the game is lost.  Exactly so, replied Monteser; and now I will
introduce you to the Duke of Lerma.

We went at once to the minister, whom we found in his
audience-chamber.  His levee was more crowded than the king's.  There
were commanders and knights of St. James and of Calatrava, making
interest for governments and viceroyalties; bishops, who, laboring
under oppression of the breath and tightness of the chest in their
own dioceses, had been recommended the air of an archbishopric by
their physicians, while the sounder lungs of lower dignitaries were
strong enough to inhale the Theban atmosphere of a suffragan see.  I
observed, besides, some reduced officers dancing attendance to
Captain Chinchilla's tune, and catching cold in fishing for a
pension, which was never likely to pay the doctor for their cure.  If
the duke did not satisfy their wants, he put a pleasant face upon
their importunities; and it struck me that he returned a civil answer
to all applicants.

We waited patiently till the routine of ceremony was despatched.
Then said Don Diego, My lord, this is Gil Blas de Santillane, the
young man appointed by your excellency to succeed Don Valerio.  The
duke now took more particular notice of me, saying obligingly, that I
had already earned my promotion by my services.  He then took me to a
private conference in his closet, or rather to an examination.  My
birth, parentage, and course of life were the objects of his inquiry;
nor would he be satisfied without the particulars, and those in the
spirit of sincerity.  What a career to run over before a patron!  Yet
it was impossible to lie in the presence of a prime minister.  On the
other hand, my vanity was concerned in suppressing so many
circumstances, that there was no venturing on an unqualified
confession.  What cunning scene had Roscius then to act?  A little
painting and tattooing might decently be employed, to disguise the
nakedness of truth, and spare her unsophisticated blushes.  But he
had studied her complexion, as well as the beauties of her natural
form.  Monsieur de Santillane, said he with a smile on the close of
my narrative, I perceive that hitherto you have had your principles
to choose.  My lord, answered I, coloring up to the eyes, your
excellency enjoined me to deal sincerely, and I have complied with
your orders.  I take your doing so in good part, replied he.  It is
all very well, my good fellow: you have escaped from the snares of
this wicked world more by luck than management: it is wonderful that
bad example should not have corrupted you irreparably.  There are
many men of strict virtue and exemplary piety, who would have turned
out the greatest rogues in existence, if their destinies had exposed
them to but half your trials.

[Illustration: Gil Blas and the Duke of Lerma]

Friend Santillane, continued the minister, ponder no longer on the
past; consider yourself, as to the very bone and marrow, the king's;
live henceforth but for his service.  Come this way; I will instruct
you in the nature of your business.  He carried me into a little
closet adjoining his own, which contained a score of thick folio
registers.  This is your workshop, said he.  All these registers
compose an alphabetical peerage, giving the heraldry and history of
all the nobility and gentry in the several kingdoms and
principalities of the Spanish monarchy.  In these volumes are
recorded the services rendered to the state by the present possessors
and their ancestors, descending even to the personal animosities and
rencounters of the individuals and their houses.  Their fortunes,
their manners, in a word, all the pros and cons of their character,
are set down according to the letter of ministerial scrutiny, so that
they no sooner enter on the list of court candidates, than my eye
catches up the very chapter and verse of their pretensions.  To
furnish this necessary information, I have pensioned scouts
everywhere on the lookout, who send me private notices of their
discoveries; but as these documents are for the most part drawn up in
a gossiping and provincial style, they require to be translated into
gentlemanly language, or the king would not be able to support the
perusal of the registers.  This task demands the pen of a polite and
perspicuous writer; I doubt not but you will justify your claim to
the appointment.

After this introduction, he put a memorial into my hand, taken from a
large portfolio full of papers, and then withdrew from my closet,
that my first specimen might be manufactured in all the freedom of
solitude.  I read the memorial, which was not only stuffed with a
most uncouth jargon, but breathed a brimstone spirit of rancor and
personal revenge.  This was most foul, strange, and unnatural! for
the homily was written by a monk.  He hacked and hewed a Catalan
family of some note most unmercifully; with what reason or truth, it
must be reserved for a more penetrating inquirer to decide.  It read,
for all the world, like an infamous libel, and I had some scruples
about becoming the publisher of the calumny; nevertheless, young as I
was at court, I plunged head foremost, at the risk of sinking and
destroying his reverence's soul.  The wickedness, if there was any,
would be put down to his running account with the recording angel; I
therefore had nothing to do but to vilify, in the present Spanish
phraseology, some two or three generations of honest men and loyal
subjects.

I had already blackened four or five pages, when the duke, impatient
to know how I got on, came back and said, Santillane, show me what
you have done; I am curious to see it.  At the same time, casting his
eye over the transcript, he read the beginning with much attention.
It seemed to please him; strange that he could be so pleased!
Prepossessed as I have been in your favor, observed he, I must own
that you have surpassed my expectations.  It is not merely the
elegance and distinctness of the handwriting!  There is something
animated and glowing in the composition.  You will do ample credit to
my choice, and fully make up for the loss of your predecessor.  He
would not have cut my panegyric so short, if his nephew the Count de
Lemos had not interrupted him in the middle of it.  By the warmth and
frequency of his excellency's welcome, it was evident that they were
the best friends in the world.  They were immediately closeted
together on some family business, of which I shall speak in the
sequel.  The king's affairs at this time were obliged to play second
to those of the minister.

While they were caballing it struck twelve.  As I knew that the
secretaries and their clerks quitted office at that hour to go and
dine wherever their business and desire should point them, I left my
prize performance behind me, and went to the gayest tavern at the
court end of the town, for I had nothing further to do with Monteser,
who had paid my salary, and taken his leave of me.  But a common
eating-house would have been a very improper place for me to be seen
in.  "Consider yourself, as to the very bone and marrow, the king's."
This metaphorical expression of the duke had given birth to a real
and tangible ambition in my soul, which put forth shoots like a
plantation in a fat and unvexed soil.




_CHAPTER III._

_ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.  SOME UNEASINESS RESULTING FROM THE
DISCOVERY OF THAT PRINCIPLE IN PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PRACTICAL
APPLICATION TO EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES._

I took especial care, on my first entrance, to instil into the
tavern-keeper's conception that I was secretary to the prime
minister; nor was it easy, in that view of my rank and consequence,
to order anything sufficiently sumptuous for dinner.  To have
selected from the bill of fare might have looked as if I descended to
the meanness of calculation; I therefore told him to send up the best
the house afforded.  My orders were punctually obeyed; and the
anxious assiduity of the attendants pampered my fancy as much as the
dishes did my palate.  As to the bill, I had nothing to do with it
but to pay it.  Down went a pistole upon the table, and the waiters
pocketed the difference, which was somewhat more than a quarter.
After this display of grandeur I strutted out, practising those
obstreperous clearings of the throat, which announce, by empty sound,
the approach of a substantial coxcomb.

There was at the distance of twenty yards a large house with lodgings
to let, principally frequented by foreign nobility.  I rented at once
a suit of apartments, consisting of five or six rooms elegantly
furnished.  From my style of living, any one would have thought I had
two or three thousand ducats of yearly income.  The first month was
paid in advance.  Afterwards I returned to business, and employed the
whole afternoon in going on with what I had begun in the morning.  In
a closet adjoining mine there were two other secretaries; but their
office was only to copy out fair.  I got acquainted with them as we
were shutting up for the evening, and, by way of smoothing the first
overtures towards friendship, invited them home with me to my tavern,
where I ordered the choicest delicacies of the season, with a
profusion of the most exquisite wines.

We sat down to table, and began bandying about more merriment than
wit; for with all due deference to my guests, it was but too visible
that they owed their official situations to any circumstance rather
than to their abilities.  They were adepts, it must be confessed, in
all the history and mystery of scrivening and clerkship; but as for
polite literature and university education, there was not even a
suspicion of it in all their talk.

To make amends for that defect, they had a keen eye to the main
chance; and though sensible how high an honor it was to be on the
prime minister's establishment, there were some dashes of acid in the
cup of good fortune.  It is now full five months, said one of them,
that we have been serving at our own cost.  We do not touch one
farthing of salary; and, what is worst of all, our very board wages
are shamefully in arrear.  There is no knowing what footing we are
upon.  As for me, said the other, I would willingly be tied up to the
halbert, and receive a percentage in lashes, for the liberty of
changing my berth; but I dare not either take myself off or petition
for my discharge, after having transcribed such state secrets as have
passed under my inspection.  I might chance to become too well
acquainted with the tower of Segovia or the castle of Alicant.

How do you manage for a subsistence, then? said I.  You must of
course have means of your own.  These they represented as very
slender; but that, fortunately for them, they lodged with a
kind-hearted widow, who boarded them on tick, at the rate of a
hundred pistoles a year for each.  These anecdotes of a court life,
not one of which escaped me, completely ventilated all the rising
fumes of pride.  It could not be supposed that more consideration
would be shown to me than to others, and consequently there was
nothing to be so puffed up with in my post; there seemed to be much
cry and little wool--a discovery which rendered it expedient to
husband my finances with a narrower economy.  A picture like this was
enough to cure my taste for treating.  I repented not having left
these secretaries to find their own supper; for they played a most
cruel knife and fork at mine! and, when the bill was brought, I
squabbled with the landlord about the charges.

We parted at midnight; and the early breaking up was to be laid at my
door; for I did not propose another bottle.  They went home to their
widow, and I withdrew to my magnificent lodgings, which I was now mad
with myself for having taken, and was fully determined to give up at
the month's end.  My bed of down was now converted into a couch of
thorns; sleep had abandoned his narcotic tenement, and sold the
fee-simple of my repose to the demon of eternal wakefulness.  The
remainder of the night was passed in contriving not to serve the
state too patriotically.  For that purpose I bethought me of
Monteser's good counsel.  I got up with the intention of making my
bow to Don Rodrigo de Calderona.  My present temper was just pat to
the purpose of ingratiating myself with so high and mighty a
gentleman, whose patronage was indispensable to my existence.  I
therefore presented my person in that secretary's antechamber.

His apartments communicated with the duke's, and rivalled them in the
lustre of their decorations.  The field officer could scarcely be
distinguished from the subaltern by any outward distinction in his
paraphernalia.  I sent in my name as Don Valerio's successor; but
that did not hinder me from being kept kicking my heels for a good
hour.  Trusty but novice officer of the king, said I, while
ruminating on court manners, learn a lesson of patience, if so please
you.  You must begin with showing paces yourself, and afterwards make
others bite the bridle.

At length the door of the inner room opened.  I went in, and advanced
towards Don Rodrigo, who had just been writing an amorous epistle to
his charming Siren, and was giving it to Pedrillo at that very
moment.  I had never manufactured my face and air into such a
counterfeit of reverence before the Archbishop of Grenada, nor on my
introduction to the Count de Galiano, nor even in presence of the
prime minister himself: the crisis of my fawning was reserved for
Signor de Calderona.  I paid my respects to him with my body bent
down to the very ground, as if crouching under the ken of a superior
intelligence, and solicited his protection in strains of humble
hypocrisy, at which my cheek now burns with shame, to think that man
can so debase himself before his fellow-man.  My servility would have
recoiled to my own undoing, had it been practised towards a compound
of any manly and independent ingredients.  As for this fellow, he
swallowed flattery by the lump without mastication, and assured me,
just as if he meant what he said, that he would leave no stone
unturned to do me service.

Hereupon, thanking him with unlimited expressions of attachment for
his kind and generous sentiments, I sold my very soul, and all my
little stock of conscience, to his free disposal.  But as this farce
might be tiresome if prolonged, I took my leave, apologizing for
having broken in upon his more serious avocations.  As soon as I had
finished this abominable scene, I slunk back to my desk, where I
finished my prescribed task.  The duke was at my elbow the next
morning.  The end of my performance was not less to his mind than the
beginning; and he praised it accordingly: This is extremely well
indeed!  Copy this abridgment in your best hand into the register of
Catalonia.  You shall not want employment of this kind.  I had a very
long conversation with his excellency, and was delighted at his mild
and familiar deportment.  What a contrast to Calderona!  They might
have sat to a painter for Pan and Apollo.

To-day I dined at a cheap ordinary, and sunk the secretary upon my
messmates, till I should ascertain what solid profit might accrue
from all my bows and scrapes.  I had funds for three months, or
thereabouts.  That interval I allowed myself for casting my bread
upon the waters.  But as the shortest speculations are the safest, if
my salary was not paid by that time, a long farewell to the court,
its frippery, and its falsehood!  Thus were my plans arranged.  For
two months I labored hard and fast to stand well with Calderona; but
his senses were so callous to all my assiduity, that it seemed labor
in vain to build on so hopeless a foundation.  This idea produced a
change in my conduct.  I left some greener fool to fumigate the
nostrils of this idol, and placed all my own dependence on making my
ground sure with the duke, by the benefit of our frequent conferences.




_CHAPTER IV._

_GIL BLAS BECOMES A FAVORITE WITH THE DUKE OF LERMA, AND THE
CONFIDANT OF AN IMPORTANT SECRET._

Though his grace's interviews with me were short as the fleeting
visions of supernatural communication, my turn and character won its
way gradually into his excellency's good liking.  One day after
dinner, he said, Attend to me, Gil Blas.  I really like you very
much.  You are a zealous, confidential lad, full of understanding and
discretion.  My trust cannot be misplaced in such hands.  I threw
myself at his feet at the music of these words, and kissing his
outstretched hand, answered thus: Is it possible that your excellency
can think so favorably of your servant?  What a host of enemies will
such a preference conjure up against me!  But Don Rodrigo is the only
man whose privy grudge is formidable enough to alarm me.

You have nothing to fear from that quarter, replied the duke.  I know
Calderona.  He has loved me from his cradle.  Every movement of his
heart is in unison with mine.  He cherishes whatever I love, and
hates in exact proportion to my dislike.  So far from being alarmed
at his ill will, you ought, on the contrary, to hug yourself on his
peculiar partiality.  This let me at once into the abysses of Don
Rodrigo's character.  He shuffled and cut the cards to his own deal,
and paid his debts of honor out of his excellency's pool.  One could
not be too wary with this gentleman.

To begin, pursued the duke, with a proof of my thorough reliance on
your faith, I will open to you a long-projected design.  It is
necessary for you to be informed of it, to qualify you for the
commissions with which I shall hereafter have occasion to intrust
you.  For a great length of time have I beheld my authority
universally respected, my decisions implicitly adopted, places,
pensions, governments, viceroyalties, and church preferments, all
awaiting my disposal.  Without umbrage to my royal master, I may be
said to be absolute in Spain.  My individual fortunes can be pushed
no higher.  But I would willingly fix firm the structure I have
raised, for the storms are already beginning to beat about the
citadel of my peace.  My only safety must consist in nominating my
nephew, the Count de Lemos, as my successor in the ministry.

This profound courtier, observing my astonishment, went on thus: I
see plainly, Santillane, I see plainly what surprises you.  It seems
strange and unaccountable that I should prefer my nephew to my own
son, the Duke d'Uzeda.  But you are to learn that this last has too
narrow a genius to fill up my place in politics; and there are other
reasons why I set my face against him.  He has found out the secret
of making himself agreeable to the king, who wants him for his
interior cabinet; and back stairs influence is what I cannot bear.
Royal favor is a sort of political mistress; exclusive possession is
its only charm.  The very existence of the passion is identified with
inextinguishable jealousy; nor can we the better endure to share the
bliss, because our rival has been nursed in our own bosom.

Thus do I lay bare the very recesses of my soul.  I have already
tried to ruin the Duke d'Uzeda with the king; but having failed, am
pointing my artillery towards another object.  I am determined that
the Count de Lemos shall stand first with the Prince of Spain.  Being
gentleman of his bed-chamber, he has opportunities of talking with
him continually; and, besides that he has a winning manner with him,
I know a sure method of enabling him to succeed in his enterprise.
By this device, my nephew will be pitted against my son.  The
cousins, harboring unfavorable suspicions of each other, will both be
forced to place themselves under my protection; and the necessity of
the case will render them submissive to my will.  This is my project;
nor will your assistance be of slender avail to its success.  It is
you whom I shall make the private channel of communication between
the Count de Lemos and myself.

After this confidence, which sounded, for all the world, like the
clink of current coin, my mind was easy about the future.  At length,
said I, behold me taking shelter under Plutus's gutter; the golden
shower may drench me to the skin before I shall cry, Hold, enough!
It is impossible that the bosom friend of a man, by whom the whole
music of the political machine is tempered, should be left to thrum
upon the discord of poverty.  Full of these harmonious visions, my
fifths and octaves were but little untuned by the sensible declension
of my purse.




_CHAPTER V._

_THE JOYS, THE HONORS, AND THE MISERIES OF A COURT LIFE, IN THE
PERSON OF GIL BLAS._

The minister's growing partiality towards me was soon noticed.  He
displayed it ostentatiously, by committing his portfolio to my
custody, which it was his habit to carry in his own hand when he went
to council.  This novelty causing me to be looked upon as a rising
favorite, excited the envy of certain persons, so that I was
preciously sprinkled with the hellish dew of court malevolence.  My
two neighbors the secretaries were not the last to compliment me on
my budding honors, and invited me to supper at the widow's, not so
much by way of returning my hospitality, as with an eye to business
in the cultivation of my acquaintance.  Parties were made for me
everywhere.  Even the haughty Don Rodrigo was cap-in-hand to me.  He
now called me nothing less than Signor de Santillane, though the moon
had scarcely changed her face since he _thee'd_ and _thou'd_ me,
without ever bethinking him that he was talking to something above a
pauper.  He heaped me up and pressed me down with civilities,
especially within eyeshot of our common patron.  But the fool was
wiser than to be caught with chaff.  The good breeding of my returns
was nicely proportioned to my thorough detestation of my humble
servant: a rascal who had lived in court all his life could not have
played the rascal better than I did.

I likewise accompanied my lord duke when he had an audience of the
king, which was usually three times a day.  In the morning he went
into his majesty's chamber as soon as he was awake.  There he dropped
down on his marrow-bones by the bedside, talked over what was to be
done in the course of the day, and put into the royal mouth the
speeches the royal tongue was to make.  He then withdrew.  After
dinner he came back again; not for state affairs, but for what, what?
and a little gossip.  He was well instructed in all the tittle-tattle
of Madrid, which was sold to him at the earliest of the season.
Lastly, in the evening he saw the king again for the third time, put
whatever color he pleased on the transactions of the day, and, as a
matter of course, requested his instructions for the morrow.  While
he was with the king, I kept in the antechamber, where people of the
first quality, sinking that they might rise, threw themselves in the
way of my observation, and thought the day not lost if I had deigned
to exchange a few words of common civility with them.  Was it to be
wondered at if my self-importance fattened upon such food?  There are
many folks at court who stalk about on stilts of much frailer
materials.

One day my vanity was still more highly pampered.  The king, to whom
the duke had puffed off my style, was curious to see a sample of it.
His excellency made me bring the register of Catalonia and myself
into the royal presence, telling me to read the first memorial I had
digested.  If so catholic a critic overpowered my modesty at first,
the minister's encouragement recalled my scattered spirits, and I
read with good tone and emphasis what his majesty deigned to hear
with some symptoms of approbation.  He spoke handsomely of my
performance, and recommended my fortunes to the especial care of his
minister.  My humility was not the greater for the augmentation of my
consequence; and a particular conversation some days afterwards with
the Count de Lemos swelled high the spring tide of all my ambitious
anticipations.

I waited on that nobleman from his uncle at the Prince of Spain's
court, and presented credentials from the duke, directing him to deal
unreservedly with me, as with a man who was embarked in their design,
and selected by himself exclusively as their go-between.  The count
then took me to a room, where he locked the door, and then spoke as
follows: Since you are confidential with the Duke of Lerma, I doubt
not you deserve to be so, and shall unbosom myself to you without
hesitation.  You are to know that matters go on just as we could
wish.  The Prince of Spain distinguishes me above the most assiduous
of his courtiers.  I had a private conversation with him this
morning, wherein he expressed some disgust at being restrained by the
king's avarice from following the inclinations of his liberal heart,
and living on a scale befitting his august rank.  On this head I
chimed in with his regrets, and, taking advantage of the opportunity,
promised to carry him a thousand pistoles early to-morrow morning, as
an earnest of larger sums with which I have engaged to feed his
necessities forthwith.  He was in ecstasy at my promises; and I am
certain of securing his grace and favor in tail, if I can but fulfil
my engagement.  Acquaint my uncle with these particulars, and come
back in the evening with his sentiments on the subject.

I left the Count de Lemos with the last words still quivering on his
lips, and went back to the Duke of Lerma, who, on my report, sent to
ask Calderona for a thousand pistoles, which he charged me to carry
to the count in the evening.  Away went I on my errand, muttering to
myself, So, so, now I have discovered the minister's infallible
receipt for the cure of all evils.  Faith and troth, he is in the
right; and to all appearance he may draw as copiously as he pleases
from the spring, without exhausting the source.  I can easily guess
what bag these pistoles come from; but, after all, is it not the
order of nature that the parent should nurture and maintain the
child?  The Count de Lemos, at our parting, said to me in a low
voice, Farewell, my good and worthy friend.  The Prince of Spain has
a little hankering after the women; we must have a little
conversation on that subject one of these days; I foresee that your
agency will be very applicable on that head.  I returned with my head
full of this last hint, which it was impossible to misinterpret.
Neither did I wish to do so, for it suited my talents to a nicety.
What the devil is to happen next? said I.  Behold me on the point of
becoming pimp to the heir of the monarchy.  Whether pimping was a
virtue or a vice, I did not stop to inquire; the coarse surtout of
morality would have worn but shabbily while the passions of so
exalted a gallant were in the glare and glow of all their newest
gloss.  What a promotion for me, to be the provider of pleasure to a
great prince!  Fair and softly, Master Gil Blas, some one may say;
after all, you will be but second minister.  May be so; but at bottom
the honor of both these posts is equal; the difference lies in the
profit only.

While executing these honorable commissions, and getting forward
daily in the good graces of the prime minister, what a happy being
should I have been, if statesmen were born with a set of intestines
to turn the chameleon's diet into chyle!  It was more than two months
since I had got rid of my grand lodging, and had taken up my quarters
in a little room scarcely good enough for a banker's clerk.  Though
this was not quite as it should be, yet since I went out betimes in
the morning, and never returned at night before bed-time, there was
not much to quarrel about on that score.  All day I was the hero of
my own stage, or rather of the duke's.  It was a principal part that
I was playing.  But when I retired from this brilliant theatre to my
own cock-loft, the great lord vanished, and poor Gil Blas was left
behind, without a royal image in his pocket, and, what was worse,
without the means of conjuring up his glorious resemblance.  Besides
that it would have wounded my pride to have divulged my necessities,
there was not a creature of my acquaintance who could have assisted
me but Navarro; and him I had too palpably neglected, since my
introduction at court, to venture on soliciting his benevolence.  I
had been obliged to sell my wardrobe article by article.  There was
nothing more left than was absolutely necessary to make a decent
appearance.  I no longer went to the ordinary, because I had no
longer wherewithal to pay my score.  How, then, did I make shift to
keep body and soul together?  There was every morning, in our
offices, a scanty breakfast set out, consisting of a little bread and
wine; this was the whole of our commons on the minister's
establishment.  I never knew what it was to exceed this stint during
the day, and at night I most frequently went supperless to bed.

Such was the fare of a man who made a splendid figure at court; but
his illustrious fortunes, like those of other courtiers, were more a
subject of pity than of grudge.  I could no longer resist the
pressure of my circumstances, and ultimately resolved on their
disclosure at a seasonable opportunity.  By good luck such an
occasion offered at the Escurial, whither the king and the Prince of
Spain removed some days afterwards.




_CHAPTER VI._

_GIL BLAS GIVES THE DUKE OF LERMA A HINT OF HIS WRETCHED CONDITION.
THAT MINISTER DEALS WITH HIM ACCORDINGLY._

When the king kept his court at the Escurial, all the world was at
free quarters: under such easy circumstances I did not feel where the
saddle galled.  My bed was in a wardrobe near the duke's chamber.
One morning that minister, having got up, according to his cursed
custom, at daybreak, made me take my writing apparatus, and follow
him into the palace gardens.  We went and sat down under an avenue of
trees; myself, as he would have it, in the posture of a man writing
on the crown of his hat; his attitude was with a paper in his hand,
and any one would have supposed he had been reading.  At some
distance, we must have looked as if the scale of Europe was to turn
upon our decision; but between ourselves, who partook of it, the talk
was miserably trifling.

For more than an hour had I been tickling his excellency's fancy with
all the conceits engendered by a merry nature and an eccentric course
of life, when two magpies perched on the trees above us.  Their clack
and clatter was so obstreperous as to force our attention, whether we
would or no.  These birds, said the duke, seem to be in dudgeon with
one another.  I should like to learn the cause of their quarrel.  My
lord, said I, your curiosity reminds me of an Indian story in Pilpay,
or some other fabulist.  The minister insisted on the particulars,
and I related them in the following terms:--

There reigned in Persia a good monarch, who, not being blessed with
capacities of sufficient compass to govern his dominions in his own
person, left the care of them to his grand vizier.  That minister,
whose name was Atalmuc, was possessed of first-rate talents.  He
supported the weight of that unwieldy monarchy, without sinking under
the burden.  He preserved it in profound peace.  His art consisted in
uniting the love of the royal authority with the reverence of it;
while the people at large looked up to the vizier as to an
affectionate father, though a devoted servant of his prince.  Atalmuc
had a young Cachemirian among his secretaries, by name Zeangir, to
whom he was particularly attached.  He took pleasure in his
conversation, invited him frequently to the chase, and opened to him
his most secret thoughts.  One day, as they were hunting together in
a wood, the vizier, at the croaking of two ravens on a tree, said to
his secretary, I should like to know what those birds are talking
about in their jargon.  My lord, answered the Cachemirian, your
wishes may be fulfilled.  Indeed!  How so? replied Atalmuc.  Because,
rejoined Zeangir, a dervis, read in many mysteries, has taught me the
language of birds.  If you wish it, I will lay my ear close to these,
and will repeat to you, word for word, whatever they may happen to
say.

The vizier agreed to the proposal.  The Cachemirian got near the
ravens, and affected to suck in their discourse.  Then, returning to
his master, My lord, said he, would you believe it?  We are ourselves
the topic of their talk.  Impossible! exclaimed the Persian minister.
Prithee now, what do they say of us?  One of the two, replied the
secretary, spoke thus: Here he is, the very man; the grand vizier,
Atalmuc, the guardian eagle of Persia, hovering over her like the
parent bird over its nest, watching without intermission for the
safety of its brood.  For the purpose of unbending from his wearisome
toils, he is hunting in this wood with his faithful Zeangir.  How
happy must that secretary be, to serve so partial and indulgent a
master!  Fair and softly, observed the other raven shrewdly, fair and
softly!  Make not too much parade about that Cachemirian's happiness.
Atalmuc, it is true, talks and jokes familiarly with him, honors him
with his confidence, and may very possibly intend to signalize his
friendship by a lucrative post; but between the cup and the lip
Zeangir may perish with thirst.  The poor devil lodges in a
ready-furnished apartment, where there is not an article of furniture
for his use.  In a word, he leads a starving life, with all the
paraphernalia of a plump-fed courtier.  The grand vizier never
troubles his head about inquiring into the right or wrong of his
affairs, but, satisfied with empty good wishes towards him, leaves
his favorite within the ruthless gripe of poverty.

I stopped here to see how the Duke of Lerma would take it! and he
asked me, with a smile, what effect the fable had produced on the
mind of Atalmuc, and whether the grand vizier had not felt a little
offended at his secretary's presumption.  No, my noble lord, answered
I, with some little embarrassment at the question; historians say
that his ingenuity was amply rewarded.  He was more lucky than
discreet, replied the duke, with a serious air; there are some
ministers who would esteem it no joke to be lectured at that rate.
But the king will not be long before he is getting up; my duty
demands my attendance.  After this hint he walked off with hasty
strides towards the palace, without throwing away a word more upon
me, and to all appearance in high dudgeon at my Indian parable.

I followed him up to the very door of his majesty's chamber, and went
thence to arrange my papers in the places whence they had been taken.
Then I entered a closet where our two copying secretaries were at
work; for they also were of the migratory party.  What is the matter
with you, Signor de Santillane? said they at the sight of me.  You
are quite down in the mouth!  Has anything untoward happened?

I was too much mortified at the ill success of my narrative to be
cautious in the expression of my grief.  On the recital of what had
passed with the duke, they sympathized in my disappointment.  You
have some reason to fret, said one of them.  Heaven grant you may be
better treated than a secretary of Cardinal Spinosa.  This unlucky
secretary, tired of working for fifteen months without pay, took the
liberty of representing his necessities to his eminence one
afternoon, and of asking for a little money towards his subsistence.
It is very proper, said the minister, that you should be paid.  Here,
pursued he, putting into his hands an order on the royal treasury for
a thousand ducats; go and receive that sum; but take notice at the
same time that it balances accounts between us.  The secretary would
have pocketed his thousand ducats without remorse, had the thousand
ducats been tangible, and the liberty of changing services secure;
but just as he stepped down from the cardinal's threshold, he was
tapped on the shoulder by an alguazil, and carried away to the tower
of Segovia, where he has been a prisoner for a length of time.

This little historical anecdote set my teeth chattering.  All was
lost and gone!  There was no comfort from within nor from without!
My own impatience had been my ruin! just as if I had not borne
starving till patience could avail no longer.  Alas! said I,
wherefore must I have blurted out that ill-starred fable, which went
so much against the grain of the minister?  He might have been just
on the point of extricating me from all my miseries; it might have
been the moment of that tide in the affairs of men which sets in for
sudden and enormous elevation.  What wealth, what honors have slipped
through the fingers by my blunder!  I ought to have been aware that
great folks do not love to be forestalled, but require the common
privileges of elementary subsistence to be received as favors at
their hands.  It would have been more prudent to have kept my lenten
entertainment longer without bothering the duke about it, and even to
have died with hunger, that he might be blamed for letting me.

Supposing any hope to have remained, my master, when I saw him after
dinner, put an extinguisher over it at once.  He was very serious
with me, contrary to his usual custom, and spoke scarcely at all--an
omen of dire dismay for the remainder of the evening.  The night did
not pass more tranquilly: the chagrin of seeing my agreeable
illusions vanish, and the fear of swelling the calendar of state
prisoners, left no room but for sighs and lamentations.

The following was the critical day.  The duke sent for me in the
morning.  I went into his chamber, with the ague fit of a criminal
before his judge.  Santillane, said he, showing me a paper in his
hand, take this order ... I shuddered at the word order, and said
within myself, O heaven! here is the Cardinal Spinosa over again; the
carriage is ordered out for Segovia.  Such was my alarm at this
moment, that I interrupted the minister, and throwing myself at his
feet, May it please your lordship, said I, bathed in tears, I most
humbly beseech your excellency to forgive me for my boldness;
necessity alone impelled me to acquaint you with my wretched
circumstances.

The duke could not help laughing at my distress.  Be comforted, Gil
Blas, answered he, and hearken attentively.  Though by betraying your
necessities a reproach lights upon me for not having prevented them,
I do not take it ill, my friend.  I rather ought to be angry with
myself for not having inquired how you were going on.  But to begin
making amends for my want of attention, there is an order on the
royal treasury for fifteen hundred ducats, payable at sight.  This is
not all; I promise you the same sum annually; and moreover, when
people of rank and substance shall solicit your interest, I have no
objection to your addressing me on their behalf.

In the excess of joy occasioned by such tidings, I kissed the feet of
the minister, who, having commanded me to rise, continued in familiar
conversation.  I endeavored to rally my free and easy humor; but the
transition from sorrow to rapture was too instantaneous to be
natural.  I felt as comical as a culprit, with a pardon singing in
his ears, just when he was on the point of being launched into
eternity.  My master attributed all my flurry to the sole dread of
having offended him; though the fear of perpetual imprisonment had
its share of influence on iny nerves.  He owned that he had affected
to look cool, to see whether I should be hurt at the alteration; that
thereby he formed his opinion with respect to the liveliness of my
attachment to his person, and that his own regard for me would always
be proportionate.




_CHAPTER VII._

_A GOOD USE MADE OF THE FIFTEEN HUNDRED DUCATS.  A FIRST INTRODUCTION
TO THE TRADE OF OFFICE, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROFIT ACCRUING
THEREFROM._

The king, as if on purpose to play into the hands of my impatience,
returned to Madrid the very next day.  I flew like a harpy to the
royal treasury, where they paid me down upon the nail the sum drawn
for in my order.  Ambition and vanity now obtained complete empire
over my soul.  My paltry lodging was fit only for secretaries of an
inferior cast, unpractised in the mysterious language of birds; for
which reason, my grand suit of apartments fortunately being vacant, I
engaged them for the second time.  My next business was to send for
an eminent tailor, who arrayed the pretty persons of all the fine
gentlemen in town.  He took my measure, and then introduced me to a
draper, who sold me five ells of cloth, the exact quantity, as he
said, to make a suit for a man of my size.  Five ells for a light
Spanish dress!  Whither did this draper and tailor expect to go? ...
But we must not be uncharitable.  Tailors who have a reputation to
support require more materials for the exercise of their genius, than
the vulgar snippers of the shopboard.  I then bought some linen, of
which I was very bare, an assortment of silk stockings, and a laced
hat.

With such an equipage, there was no doing without a footman; so that
I desired Vincent Ferrero, my landlord, to look out for one.  Most of
the foreigners who were recommended to his lodgings, on their arrival
at Madrid, were wont to hire Spanish servants; and this was the means
of turning his house into a register office.  The first who offered
was a lad of so mortified and devotional an aspect, that I would have
nothing to say to him; he put me in mind of Ambrose de Lamela.  I am
quite out of conceit, said I to Ferrero, with these pious
coat-brushers; I have been taken in by them already.

I had scarcely turned virtue in a livery out of doors, when another
came up stairs.  This seemed to be a good sprightly fellow, with as
little mock modesty as if he had been bred at court, and a certain
something about him which indicated that he did not carry principle
to any dangerous excess.  He was just to my mind.  His answers to my
questions were pat and to the purpose: he evinced a talent for
intrigue beyond my most sanguine hopes.  This was exactly the subject
for my purpose; so I fixed him at once.  Neither had I any reason to
repent of my bargain; for it was very soon evident that farther off I
must have fared worse.  As the duke had allowed me to solicit on
behalf of my friends, and it was my design to push that permission to
the utmost, a stanch hound was necessary to put up the game; or, in
phrase familiar to dull capacities, an active chap, with a turn for
routing out and bringing to my market all palm-tickling petitioners
for the loaves and fishes of the prime minister.  This was just where
Scipio shone most; for my servant's name was Scipio.  He had lived
last with Donna Anna de Guevara, the Prince of Spain's nurse, where
he had ample scope for the exercise of that accomplishment.  As soon
as he became acquainted with my credit at court, and the use to which
I meant to put it, he took the field like his great ancestors, and
began the campaign without the loss of a day.  Master, said he, a
young gentleman of Grenada is just come to Madrid; his name is Don
Roger de Rada.  He has been engaged in an affair of honor which
compels him to throw himself on the Duke of Lerma's protection, and
he is well disposed to come down handsomely for any grace and favor
he may obtain.  I have talked with him on the subject.  He had a mind
to have made friends with Don Rodrigo de Calderona, whose influence
had been represented to him in magnificent terms; but I dissuaded
him, by pointing out that secretary's method of selling his good
offices for more than their weight in gold; whereas, on the contrary,
you would be satisfied with any decent expression of gratitude for
yours, and would even do the business for the mere pleasure of doing
it, if you were in circumstances to follow the bent of your own
generous and disinterested temper.  In short, I talked to him in such
a strain, that you will see the gentleman early to-morrow morning.
How is all this, Master Scipio? said I.  You must have transacted a
great deal of business in a short time.  You are no novice in
back-stairs influence.  It is very strange that you have not
feathered your own nest.  That ought not to surprise you at all,
answered he.  I love to make money circulate, not to hoard it up.

Don Roger de Rada came according to his appointment.  I received him
with a mixture of courtly plausibility and ministerial pride.  My
worthy sir, said I, before I engage in your interests, I wish to know
the nature of the affair which brings you to court; because it may be
such as to preclude me from speaking to the minister in your favor.
Give me therefore, if you please, the particulars faithfully, and
rest assured that I shall enter warmly into your interests, if they
are proper to be espoused by a man who moves in my sphere.  My young
client promised to be sincere in his representation, and began his
narrative in the following words.



END OF VOL. II.



BALLANTYNE AND HANSON, EDINBURGH

CHANDOS STREET; LONDON







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