The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane - Alain René le Sage (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

not wishing our conversation to be overheard. He

shut the door, and we took our seats opposite to each other. Let

us say grace, and fall to, said he. Your appetite ought to be

good after two days of fasting. Under this impression he loaded

my plate as if he had been cramming the craw of a starveling. In

fact, nothing was more likely than that I should play the devil

among the ragouts; but what is likely does not always happen.

Though my intestines were yearning for support, their staple

stuck in my throat, for my heart loathed all pleasurable

indulgence in the present state of my affairs. In vain did my

warden, to drive away the blue devils, pledge me continually, and

expatiate on the excellence of his wine; imperishable nectar

would have been pricked according to the fastidious report of my

palate. This being the case, he went another way to work, and

told me the story of his marriage, with as much humour as such a

subject would admit. Here he was still less successful. So

wandering was my attention, that before the end I had forgotten

the beginning and the middle. At length he was convinced that

there was no diverting my gloomy thoughts for that evening. After

finishing his solitary supper, he rose from table, saying: Signor

de Santillane, I shall leave you to your repose, or rather to the

free indulgence of your own reveries. But, take my word for it,

your misfortune will not be of long continuance. The king is

naturally good. When his anger shall have passed away, and your

deplorable estate shall occur to his milder thoughts, your

punishment will appear sufficient in his eyes. With these words,

my kind hearted gaoler went down-stairs, and sent the servants to

take away. Not even the brass candlesticks were left behind; and

I went to bed by the palpable darkness of a glimmering lamp

suspended against the wall.

 

CH. V. — His reflections before he went to sleep that night, and

the noise that waked him.

 

Two hours at least were my thoughts employed on what Tordesillas

had told me. Here, then, am I, for having lent myself to the

pleasures of the heir-apparent! It was certainly not having my

wits about me, to pander for so young a prince. Therein consists

my crime; had he been arrived at a more knowing age, the king

perhaps might only have laughed at what has now made him so

angry. But who can have given such counsel to the monarch,

without dreading the prince’s resentment or the Duke of Lerma’s?

That minister will doubtless take ample vengeance for his nephew

the Count de Lemos. How can the king have made the discovery?

That is above my comprehension.

 

This last was the eternal burden of my song. But the idea most

afflictive to my mind, what drove me to despair, and laid fiend-like hold upon my fancy, was the unquestioned plunder of my

effects. My strong box, exclaimed I, my dear wealth, what is

become of you? Into what hands have you fallen? Alas! you are

lost in less time than you were gained! The ruinous confusion of

my household was the perpetual death’s-head of my imagination.

Yet this wilderness of melancholy ideas sheltered me from

absolute distraction: sleep, which had shunned my wretched straw,

now paid his readier visit to my soft and gentle manly couch.

Watching and wine, too, imparted a strong narcotic to his

poppies. My slumbers were profound; and to all appearance, the

day might have peeped in upon my repose, if I had not been

awakened all at once by such sounds as rarely perforate a prison

wall. I heard the thrum of a guitar, accompanying a man’s voice.

My whole attention was absorbed; but the invisible musician

paused, and left the fleeting impression of a dream. An instant

after wards, my ear was soothed with the sound of the same

instrument, and the same voice.

 

Wisely the ant against poor winter hoards

The stock which summer’s wealth affords;

In grasshoppers, that must at autumn die,

How vain were such an industry.

 

Of love or fortune the deceitful light

Might half excuse our cheated sight,

If it of life the whole small time would stay,

And be our sunshine all the day.

 

[To have substituted, with a slight variation, these two stanzas

from Cowley for a translation of the commonplace couplet in the

original, will probably not be thought to require any apology.

They necessarily involve a change in the consequent reflections

of our hero. TRANSLATOR]

 

These verses, which sounded as if they had been sung expressly

for the dirge of my departed happiness, were only an aggravation

of my feelings. The truth of the sentiment, said I, is but too

well exemplified in me. The meteor of court favour has but

plunged me in substantial darkness; the summer sunshine of

ambition is quenched in these autumnal glooms. Now did I sink

again into cold and comfortless meditation; my miseries began to

flow afresh, as if they fed and grew upon their own vital stream.

Yet my wailings ended with the night; and the first rays which

played upon my chamber wall amused my mind into composure. I got

up to open my window, and let the vivid air of morning into my

room. Then I glanced over the country, so attractively depicted

in the description of my keeper. It did not seem to justify his

panegyric. The Er�ma, a second Tagus in my magnifying fancy, was

little better than a brook. Its flowery banks were fringed with

nettles, and arrayed in all the majesty of thistles; the

delicious vale in this fairy prospect was a barren wilderness,

untamed by human labour. It therefore was very evident that my

keener sensations were not yet softened into such a composed

melancholy, as could give any but a jaundiced colouring to the

landscape.

 

I began dressing, and had already half finished my toilet, when

Tordesillas ushered in an old chambermaid, laden with shirts and

towels. Signor Gil Blas, said he, here is your linen. Do not be

saving of it; there shall always be as many changes as you can

possibly want. Well now! and how have you passed the night? Has

the drowsy god administered his anodyne? I could have slept till

this time, answered I, if I had not been awakened by a voice

singing to a guitar. The cavalier who has disturbed your repose,

resumed he, is a state prisoner; and his chamber is contiguous to

yours. He is a knight of the military order of Calatrava, and is

a very accomplished person. His name is Don Gaston de Cogollos.

You may meet as often as you like, and take your meals together.

It will afford reciprocal consolation to compare your fortunes.

There can be no doubt of your being agreeable to one another. I

assured Don Andrew how sensible I was of his indulgence in

allowing me to blend my sorrows with those of my fellow-sufferer;

and, as I betrayed some impatience to be acquainted with him, our

accommodating warden met my wishes on the very same day. He fixed

me to dine with Don Gaston, whose prepossessing physiognomy and

symmetry of feature struck me sensibly. Judge what it must have

been, to make so strong an impression on eyes accustomed to

encounter the dazzling exterior of the court. Figure to yourself

a man fashioned in the mould of pleasure; one of those heroes in

romance, who has only to shew his face, and banish the sweet

sleep from the eyelids of princesses. Add to this, that nature,

who is generally bountiful with one hand and niggardly with the

other, had crowned the perfections of Cogollos with wit and

valour. He was a man, whose like, take him for all in all, we

might not soon look upon again.

 

If this fine fellow was mightily to my taste, it was my good luck

not to be altogether offensive to him. He no longer sang at night

for fear of annoying me, though I begged him by no means to

restrain his inclinations on my account. A bond of union is soon

formed between brethren in misfortune. A close friendship

succeeded to mere acquaintance, and strengthened from day to day.

The liberty of uninterrupted intercourse contributed greatly to

our mutual support; our burden became lighter by division.

 

One day after dinner I went into his room, just as he was tuning

his guitar. To hear him more at my ease, I sat down on the only

stool; while he, reclining on his bed, played a pathetic air, and

sang to it a ditty, expressing the despair of a lover and the

cruelty of his mistress. When he had finished, I said to him with

a smile, Sir knight, such strains as these could never be

applicable to your own successes with the fair. You were not made

to cope with female repulse. You think too well of me, answered

he. The verses you have just heard were composed to fit my own

case; to soften a heart of adamant. You must hear my story, and

in my story, my distresses.

 

CH. VI — History of Don Gaston de Cogollos and Donna Helena de

Galisteo.

 

IT will be very soon four years since I left Madrid to go and see

my aunt Donna Eleonora de Laxarilla at Coria: she is one of the

richest dowagers in Old Castile, with myself for her only heir.

Scarcely had I got within her doors, when love invaded my repose.

The windows of my room faced the lattice of a lady living

opposite: but the street was narrow, and her blinds pervious to

the eye. It was an opportunity too delicious to be lost; and I

found my neighbour so lovely that my heart was captivated. The

subject of my sentry-watch could not be mistaken. She marked it

well; but she was not a girl to glory in the detection, still

less to encourage my fooleries.

 

It was natural to inquire the name of this mighty conqueror. I

learnt it to be Donna Helena, only daughter of Don George de

Galisteo, lord of a large domain near Coria. She had innumerable

offers of marriage; but her father repulsed them all, because he

meant to bestow her hand on his nephew, Don Austin de Olighera,

who had uninterrupted access to his cousin while the settlements

were preparing. This was no bar to my hopes: on the contrary, it

whetted my eagerness: and the insolent pleasure of supplanting a

favoured rival was, perhaps, at bottom equally my motive with a

more noble passion. My visual artillery was obstinately planted

against my unyielding fair. Her attendant Felicia was not without

the incense of a glance, to soften her rigid constancy in my

favour; while nods and becks stood for the current coin of

language. But all these efforts of gallantry were in vain — the

maid was impregnable like her mistress — never was there such a

pair of cold and cruel ones.

 

The commerce of the eyes being so unthrifty, I had recourse to

different agents. My scouts were on the watch to hunt out what

acquaintance Felicia might have in town. They discovered an old

lady, by name Theodora, to be her most intimate friend, and that

they often met. Delighted at the intelligence, I went point blank

to Theodora, and engaged her by presents in my interest. She took

my cause up heartily, promised to contrive an interview for me

with her friend, and kept her engagement the very next day.

 

I am no longer the wretch of yesterday, said I to Felicia, since

my sufferings have melted you to pity. How deep is my debt to

your friend for her kind interference in my behalf. Sir, answered