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

praise in the

highest terms his conduct in the administration of our

temporalities. What is most of all miraculous, and shews the hand

of heaven in his conversion, is that, with such an accumulation

of business rushing in upon him in his bursarial department, his

regards are inalienably fixed on the world to come. When business

leaves him but a moment to recruit nature, instead of lavishing

the short period in indulgence, his thoughts wing their way into

the regions of devout and holy meditation. In short, he is the

most exemplary member of this body.

 

At this period of our conversation I interrupted Lamela by an

ebullition of joy to which I gave vent at the sight of Raphael

coming in. Here he is! exclaimed I: behold that righteous bursar

for whom I have been so impatiently waiting. With a leap and a

bound did I run to meet and embrace him. He submitted to the hug

with his newly-acquired resignation; and, without betraying the

slightest shock at meeting with an old companion of his profaner

hours, his words were dictated by the spirit of gentleness and

humility: The powers above be praised, Signor de Santillane, the

powers be praised for this kind providence whereby we meet again.

In good truth, my dear Raphael, replied I, your happy destiny

pleases me as much as if it had been my own good luck; brother

Ambrose has told me the whole story of your conversion, and the

tale almost moved me to a similar change. What a glorious lot for

you two, my friends, when you have reason to flatter yourselves

with being among that picked number of the elect, who have

eternal happiness thrust upon them whether they will or no!

 

Two miserable sinners like ourselves, resumed the son of Lucinda,

with an air which marked the extreme of sanctified morality, must

not hope that our own merits are of weight enough to save our

souls; but even the wicked one who repenteth, findeth grace with

the Father of mercies. And you, Signor Gil Blas, added he, is it

not time to lay in a claim for pardon of the offences which you

have committed? What is your business here in Valencia? Are you

not hankering after some office of devil’s deputy, and making

shipwreck of your voyage to another world? Not so, by the

blessing of heaven, answered I; since I turned my back on the

court, I have led a very moral sort of life: sometimes enjoying

rural recreations on an estate of mine at a few leagues distance

from this town, and sometimes coming hither to pass my time with

my friend the governor, whom you both of you must know perfectly

well.

 

On this cue I related to them the story of Don Alphonso de Leyva.

They heard the particulars with attention; and on my telling them

that I had carried to Samuel Simon, on the part of that nobleman,

the three thousand ducats of which we had robbed him, Lamela

interrupted the thread of my narrative, and addressing his

discourse to Raphael, said: Father Hilary, if this be true, the

honest vendor of wares has no reason to quarrel with a robbery

which has paid him fifty per cent; and our consciences, as far as

that indictment goes, may bask in the sunshine of acquitted

innocence. Brother Ambrose and I, said the bursar, did actually,

on the assumption of the habit, send Samuel Simon fifteen hundred

ducats privately, by a pious ecclesiastic who made a pilgrimage

to Xelva for the sole purpose of accomplishing this restitution;

but it will go hard with Samuel at the general reckoning, if he

for filthy lucre could soil his fingers with that sum, after

having been reimbursed in full by Signor de Santillane. But, said

I, how do you know that your fifteen hundred ducats were

faithfully paid into his hands? Unquestionably they were!

exclaimed Don Raphael; I would answer for the disinterested

purity of that ecclesiastic as soon as for my own. I would be

your collateral security, said Lamela; he is a priest of the

strictest sanctity, a sort of universal almoner; and though many

times cited for sums of money, deposited with him for charitable

uses, he has always nonsuited the plaintiff and gone out of court

with an augmentation of alms-giving notoriety.

 

Our conversation continued for some time longer: at length we

parted, with many a pious exhortation on their side, always to

have the fear of the Lord before my eyes, and with many an

earnest intreaty on mine, that they would remember me constantly

in their prayers. Don Alphonso was now the first object of my

search. You will never guess, said I, with whom I have just had a

long conference. I am but now come from two venerable Carthusians

of your acquaintance; the name of the one is father Hilary, that

of the other, brother Ambrose. You are mistaken, answered Don

Alphonso; I am not acquainted with a single Carthusian. Pardon

me, replied I; you have seen brother Ambrose at Xelva in the

capacity of commissary, and father Hilary as register to the

Inquisition. Oh heaven! exclaimed the governor with surprise, can

it be within the bounds of possibility that Raphael and Lamela

should have turned Carthusians? It is even so, answered I; they

professed several years ago. The former is bursar and proctor to

the convent; the latter, porter.

 

The son of Don Caesar rubbed his forehead twice or thrice, then

shaking his bead, These worshipful officers of the Inquisition,

said he, most assuredly purpose playing over the old farce on a

new stage here. You judge of them by prejudice, answered I, from

the impression of their characters as men of sin: but had you

been edified by their lectures as I have been, you would think

more favourably of their holiness. To be sure, it is not for

mortal men to fathom the depth of other men’s hearts; but to all

appearance they are two prodigals returned home. It possibly may

be so, replied Don Alphonso: there are many instances of

libertines, who hide their heads in cloisters, after having

scandalized human nature by their obliquities, to expiate their

offences by a severe penance: I heartily wish that our two monks

may be such libertines restored.

 

Well! and why not? said I. They have embraced the monastic life

of their own accord, and have squared their conduct for a length

of time according to the maxims of their order. You may say what

you please, retorted the governor; but I do not like the

convent’s rents being received by this father Hilary, of whom I

cannot help entertaining a very untoward opinion. When the fine

story he told us of his adventures comes across my mind, I

tremble for the reverend brotherhood. I am willing to believe

with you, that he has taken the vow with the pious intention of

keeping it; but the blaze of gold may be too much for the

weakness of his regenerated eyesight. It is bad policy to lock

up a reformed drunkard in a wine cellar.

 

In the course of a few days Don Alphonso’s misgivings were fully

justified; these two official props and stays of the

establishment ran away with the year’s revenue. This news, which

was immediately noised about the town, could not do otherwise

than set the tongues of the wits in motion; for they always make

themselves merry at the crosses and losses of the well-endowed

religious orders. As for the governor and myself, we condoled

with the Carthusians, but kept our acquaintance with the apostate

pilferers in the background.

 

CH. VII. — Gil Blas returns to his seat at Lirias. Scipio’s

agreeable intelligence, and a reform in the domestic

arrangements.

 

I PASSED a week at Valencia in the first company, living on equal

terms with the best of the nobility. Plays, balls, concerts,

grand dinners, ladies’ parties, all things that heart could wish

or vanity grow tall upon, were provided for me by the governor

and his lady, to whom I paid my court so dexterously, that they

were heartily sorry to see me set out on my return to Lirias.

They even obliged me, before they would let me go, to engage for

a division of my time between them and my hermitage. It was

determined that I should spend the winter in Valencia, and the

summer at my seat. After this bargain, my benefactors left me at

liberty to tear myself from them, and go where their kindness

would be always staring me in the face.

 

Scipio, who was waiting impatiently for my return, was ready to

jump out of his skin for joy at the sight of me; and his

ecstasies were doubled at my circumstantial account of the

journey. And now for your history, my friend, said I, taking

breath: to what moral uses have you turned the solitary period of

my absence? Has the time passed agreeably? As well, answered he,

as it could with a servant to whom nothing is so dear as the

presence of his master. I have walked over our little domain,

circuitously and diagonally: sometimes seated on the margin of a

fountain in our wood, I have taken pleasure in be holding the

transparency of its waters, which are as pellucid as those of the

sacred spring, whose projection from the rock made the vast

forest of Albunea to resound with the roar of the cascade:

sometimes lying at the foot of a tree, I have listened to the

song of the linnet or the nightingale. At other times I have

hunted or fished; and, what has given me more rational delight

than all these pastimes, I have whiled away many a profitable

hour in the improvement of my mind.

 

I interrupted my secretary in a tone of eager inquiry, to ask

where he had procured books. I found them, said he, in an elegant

library here in the house, whither master Joachim took me.

Heyday! in what corner, resumed I, can this said library be? Did

we not go over the whole building on the day of our arrival? You

fancied so, rejoined he; but you are to know that we only

explored three sides of the square, and forgot the fourth. It was

there that Don Caesar, when he came to Lirias, employed part of

his time in reading. There are in this library some very good

books, left as a never-failing phylactery against the blue

devils, when our gardens despoiled of Flora’s treasure, and our

woods of their leafy honours, shall no longer challenge those

miscreant invaders to combat in the forest or the bower. The

lords of Lena have not done things by halves, but have catered

for the mind as well as for the body.

 

This intelligence filled me with sincere rapture. I was shewn to

the fourth side of the square, and feasted with an intellectual

banquet Don Caesar’s room I immediately determined to make my

own. That nobleman’s bed was still there, with correspondent

furniture, consisting of historical tapestry, representing the

rape of the Sabine women by the Romans. From the bedchamber, I

went into a closet fitted up with low bookcases well filled, and

over them the portraits of the Spanish kings. Near a window

whence you command a prospect of a most bewitching country, there

was an ebony writing-desk and a large sofa, covered with black

morocco. But I gave my attention principally to the library. It

was composed of philosophers, poets, historians; and abounded in

romances. Don Caesar seemed to give the preference to that light

reading, if one might judge by the profusion of supply. I must

own, to my shame, that my taste was not at all above the level of

those productions, notwithstanding the extravagances they delight

in stringing together; whether it