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

and conviviality, when on a sudden our

harmony was interrupted by an alarming occurrence. My secretary,

being in the hall where I was dining with Don Alphonso’s

principal officers and Seraphina’s women, suddenly fainted. I

started up and ran to his assistance; and while I was employed in

bringing him about, one of the women was taken ill also. It was

evident to the whole company that this sympathetic malady must

involve some mysterious incident, as in effect it turned out

almost immediately, that thereby hung a tale; for Scipio soon

recovered, and said to me in a low voice, Why must one man’s meat

be another man’s poison, and the most auspicious of your days the

curse of mine? But every man bears the bundle of his sins upon

his back, and my pack-saddle is once more thrown across my

shoulders in the person of my wife.

 

Powers of mercy! exclaimed I, this can never be; it is all a

romance. What! you the husband of that lady whose nerves were so

affected by the disturbance? Yes, sir, answered he, I am her

husband; and fortune, if you will take the word of a sinner,

could not have done me a dirtier office than by conjuring up such

a grievance as this. I know not, my friend, replied I, what

reasons you may have for thus belabouring your rib with wordy

buffets, but however she may be to blame, in mercy keep a bridle

on your tongue; if you have any regard for me, do not displace

the mirth and spoil the pleasure of this nuptial meeting, by

ominous disorder or enraged questions of past injuries. You shall

have no reason to complain on that score, rejoined Scipio; but

shall see presently whether I am not a very apt dissembler.

 

With this assurance he went forward to his wife, whom her

companions had also brought back to life and recollection; and,

embracing her with as much apparent fervour as if his raptures

had been real, Ah, my dear Beatrice, said he, heaven has at

length united us again after ten years of cruel separation! But

this blissful moment is well purchased by whole ages of torturing

suspense! I know not, answered his spouse, whether you really are

at all the happier for having recovered a part of yourself: but

of this at least I am fully certain, that you never had any

reason to run away from me as you did. A fine story indeed! You

found me one night with Signor Don Ferdinand de Leyva, who was in

love with my mistress Julia, and consulted me on the subject of

his passion; and only for that, you must take it into your stupid

head, that I was caballing with him against your honour and my

own: thereupon that poor brain of yours was turned with jealousy;

you quitted Toledo in a huff, and ran away from your own flesh

and blood as you would from a monster of the deserts, without

leaving word why or wherefore. Now which of us two, be so good as

to tell me, has most reason to take on and be pettish? Your own

dear self, beyond all question, replied Scipio. Beyond all

question, re-echoed she, my own illused self. Don Ferdinand,

very shortly after you had taken yourself off from Toledo,

married Julia, with whom I continued as long as she lived; and,

after we had lost her by sudden death, I came into my lady her

sister’s service, who, as well as all her maids, and I would do

as much for them, will give me a good character; honest and

sober, and a very termagant among the impertinent fellows.

 

My secretary, having nothing to allege against such a character

from my lady and her maids, was determined to make the best of a

bad bargain. Once for all, said he to his spouse, I acknowledge

my bad behaviour, and beg pardon for it before this honourable

assembly. It was now time for me to act the mediator, and to move

Beatrice for an act of amnesty, assuring her that her husband

from this time forward would make it the great object of his life

to play the husband to her satisfaction. She began to see that

there was reason in roasting of eggs, and all present were loud

in their congratulations, on the triumph of suffering virtue, and

the renovated pledge of broken vows. To bind the contract firmer,

and make it memorable, they were seated next to one another at

table; their healths were drank according to the laws of

toasting; wish you joy! many returns of this happy day! rang

round on every side: one would have sworn that the dinner was

given for their reconciliation, and not on account of my

marriage.

 

The third table was the first to be cleared. The young villagers

jumped up in a body; the lads took out their blooming partners;

the tambourines struck up a merry beat; spectators flocked from

the other tables, and caught the enlivening spirit from the gay

bustle of the scene. Every limb and muscle of every individual

was in motion: the household of the governor and his lady formed

a set, apart from the rustics of the company, while their

superiors did not disdain to mingle with the homelier dancers.

Don Alphonso danced a saraband with Seraphina, and Don Caesar

another with Antonia, who afterwards took me for her partner. She

did not perform much amiss, considering that she never got much

further than the five positions, in learning which she had her

ankles kicked to pieces by a provincial dancing-master at

Albarazin, while on a visit to a tradesman’s wife, one of her

relations. As for me, who, as I have already said, had taken

lessons at the Marchioness de Chaves’s, I figured away as the

principal man in this rural ballet. With regard to Beatrice and

Scipio, they preferred a little private conversation to dancing,

that they might compare notes on the subject of war and tear

during the painful period of separation: but their billing and

cooing was interrupted by Seraphina, who, having been informed of

this dramatic discovery, sent for them to pay the customary

compliments of congratulation. My good people, said she, on this

day of general joy, it gives me additional pleasure to see you

two restored to one another. My friend Scipio, I return you your

wife under a firm belief that she has always conducted herself as

became a woman; take up your abode with her here, and be a good

husband to her. And you, Beatrice, attach yourself to Antonia,

and let her be as much the object of your devoted service as

Signor de Santillane is that of your husband. Scipio, who could

not possibly, after this, think of Penelope as fit to hold a

candle to his own wife, promised to treat her with all the

deference due to such a paragon of conjugal fidelity.

 

The country people, having kept up the dance till late, withdrew

to their own homes; but the rejoicings were prolonged by the

company in the house. There was a grand supper, and at bed-time

the vicar-general pronounced the

blessing of consummation. Seraphina undressed the bride, and the

lords of Leyva did me the same honour. The ridiculous part of the

business was, that Don Alphonso’s officers and his lady’s

attendants took it into their heads, by way of diverting

themselves, to perform the same ceremony: they also undressed

Beatrice and Scipio, who, to render the scene supremely farcical,

gravely allowed themselves to be untrussed, and put to bed with

all nuptial pomp and state.

 

CH. X. — The honey-moon (a very dull time for the reader as a

third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio’s story.

 

“‘Tis heaven itself, ‘tis ecstacy of bliss,

Uninterrupted joy, untired excess;

Mirth following mirth, the moments dance away;

Love claims the night, and friendship rules the day.”

 

ON the day after the wedding the lords of Leyva returned to

Valencia, after having lavished on me a thousand marks of

friendship. There was such a general clearance, that my secretary

and myself, with our respective wives, and our usual

establishment, were left in undisturbed possession of our own

home.

 

The efforts which we both made to please our ladies were not

thrown away: I breathed by degrees into the partner of my joys

and sorrows as much love for me as I entertained for her; and

Scipio made his better part forget the woes and privations he had

occasioned her. Beatrice, who had very winning ways with her, and

was all things to all women, had no difficulty about worming

herself into the good graces of her new mistress, and gaining her

complete confidence. In short, we all four agreed admirably well

together, and began to enjoy a bliss above the common lot of

humanity. Every day rolled along more delightfully than the last.

Antonia was pensive and demure; but Beatrice and myself were

enlisted in the crew of mirth; and even though we had been

constitutionally sedate, Scipio was among us, and he was of

himself a pill to purge melancholy. The best creature in the

world for a snug little party! one of those merry drolls who have

only to shew their comical faces, and set the table in a roar of

inextinguishable laughter.

 

One day, when we had taken a fancy to go after dinner, and doze

away the usual interval in the most sequestered spot about the

grounds, my secretary got into such exuberant spirits, as to

chase away the drowsy god by his exhilarating sallies. Do hold

your tongue, my loquacious friend, said I: or else, if you are

determined to wage war against this lazy custom of our

afternoons, at least tell us something which we shall he the

wiser for hearing. With all my heart and soul, sir, answered he.

Would you have me go through all fabulous histories of wandering

knights, distressed damsels, giants, enchanted castles, and the

whole train of legendary adventures? I had much rather hear your

own true history, replied I; but that is a pleasure which you

have not thought fit to give me so long as we have lived

together, and I seem likely to go without it to the end of the

chapter. How happens that? said he. If I have not told you my own

story, it is because you never expressed the slightest wish to be

troubled with the recital: therefore it is not my fault if you

are in the dark about my past life; but if you are really at all

curious to be let into the secret, my loquacity is very much at

your service on the occasion. Antonia, Beatrice, and myself,

unanimously took him at his word, and arranged ourselves for

listening like an attentive audience. The speculation was a safe

one on our parts; for the tale was sure to answer, either as a

stimulant or a soporific.

 

I certainly ought to have been descended, said Scipio, from some

family of the highest rank and earliest antiquity; or in default

of such parentage, from the most distinguished orders of personal

merit, such as that of St James or Alcantara, if a man may be

permitted to decide on the fittest circumstances his own birth:

but as it is not among the privileges of human nature to elect

one’s own father, you are to know that mine, by name Torribio

Scipio, was a subaltern myrmidon of the Holy Brotherhood. As he

was going back and fore on the king’s highway, and looking after

business in his own line, he met once on a time, between Cuen�a

and Toledo, with a young Bohemian babe of chance, who appeared

very pretty in his eyes. She was alone, on foot, and carried her

whole patrimony at