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

her back in a kind of knapsack. Whither are

you going, my little darling? said he in a philandering tone of

voice, unlike the natural hoarseness of his accents. Good worthy

gentleman, answered she, I am going to Toledo, where I hope to

gain an honest livelihood by hook or by crook. Your intentions

are highly commendable, retorted he; and I doubt not but you have

many a hook and many a crook among the implements of your trade.

Yes, with a blessing on my endeavours, rejoined she: I have

several little ways of doing for myself: I know how to make

washes and creams for the ladies’ faces, perfumes for their noses

and their chambers; then I can tell fortunes, can search for

things lost with a sieve and shears, and erect figures for the

taking in of shadows with a glass.

 

Torribio, concluding that so well-provided a girl would be a very

advantageous match for a man like himself, who could scarcely

scrape wherewithal to support life by his own profession, though

he was as good a thief-taker as the best of them, made her an

offer of marriage, and she was nothing loth, nor prudishly coy.

They flew on the wings of inclination and convenience to Toledo,

where they were joined together; and you behold in me the happy

pledge of holy and lawful matrimony. They fixed themselves in a

shop on the outskirts of the town, where my mother commenced her

career by selling the said washes, creams, tapes, laces, silk,

thread, toys, and pedlar’s ware; but trade not being brisk enough

to live comfortably by it, she turned fortune-teller. This drew

her customers, got her countenance, credit, crowns, and pistoles:

a thousand dupes of either sex soon trumpeted up the reputation

of Coselina; for so my gipsy mamma had the honour to be named.

Some one or other came every day to bargain for the exercise of

her skill in the black art: at one time a nephew at his wit’s and

purse’s end, wanting to know how soon his uncle was to set off

post for the other world, and leave behind him wherewithal to

piece his worn-out fortunes: at another, some yielding, love-sick

girl, to inquire whether the swain who kept her company, and had

promised to marry her, would keep his word or be false-hearted.

 

You will take notice, if you please, that my mother always sold

good luck for good money; if the accomplishment trod on the heels

of the prediction, well and good; if it was fulfilled according

to the rule of contraries, she was always cool, though the

parties were ever so violently in a passion, and told them

plainly that it was her familiar’s fault, not hers; for though

she paid him the highest wages, and bound him by potent spells to

stir up the cauldron of futurity from the bottom, like earthly

cooks, he would sometimes be careless or out of humour, and

apportion the ingredients wrongly.

 

When my mother thought the conjuncture momentous enough to raise

the devil without cheapening him in the eyes of the vulgar,

Torribio Scipio enacted his infernal majesty, and played the part

just as if he had been born to it, humouring the hideous features

of the character by a very small aggravation of his own natural

face, and practising the pandemonian note of elocution in the

lower octave of his voice. A person in the slightest degree

superstitious would

be scared out of his senses at my father’s figure. But one day,

as his satanic prototype would have it, there came a savage

rascal of a captain, who asked to see the devil, for no earthly

purpose but to run him clean through the body. The Inquisition,

having received notice of the devil’s death, sent to take charge

of his widow, and administer to his effects; as for poor little

me, just seven years old at the time, I was sent to the foundling

hospital. There were some charitable ecclesiastics on that

establishment, who, being liberally paid for the education of the

poor orphans, were so zealous in their office as to teach them

reading and writing. They fancied there was something

particularly promising about me, which made them pick me out from

all the rest, and send me on their errands. I was letter-carrier,

messenger, and chapel clerk. As a token of their gratitude, they

undertook to teach me Latin; but their mode of tuition was so

harsh, and their discipline so severe, though I was a sort of pet

with them, that, not being able to stand it any longer, I ran

away one morning while out on an errand; and, so far from

returning to the hospital, got out of Toledo through the suburbs

on the Seville side.

 

Though I had not then completed my ninth year, I already felt the

pleasure of being free, and master of my own actions. I was

without money and without food; no matter! I had no lessons to

say by heart, no themes to hammer out. After having pushed on for

two hours, my little legs began to refuse their office. I had

never before made so long a trip. It became necessary to stop and

take some rest. I sat myself down at the foot of a tree close by

the high. way; there, by way of amusement, I took my grammar out

of my pocket, and began conning it over by way of a joke; but at

length, coming to recollect the raps on the knuckles, and the

castigations on the more classical seat of punishment which it

had cost me, I tore it leaf by leaf with an apostrophe of angry

import. Ah! you odious thing of a book! you shall never make me

shed tears any more. While I was assuaging my vindictive spirit,

by strewing the ground about me with declensions and

conjugations, there passed that way a hermit with a white beard,

with a large pair of spectacles on his nose, and altogether an

outside of much sanctity. He came up to me; and, if I was an

object of speculation to him, he was no less so to me. My little

man, said he with a smile, it should seem as if we had both taken

a sudden liking to each other, and in that case we cannot do

better than to live together in my hermitage, which is not two

hundred yards distant. Your most obedient for that, answered I

pertly enough; I have not the least desire to turn hermit. At

this answer, the good old man set up a roar of laughter, and said

with a kind embrace: You must not be frightened at my dress; if

it is not becoming, it is useful; it gives me my title to a

charming retreat, and to the goodwill of the neighbouring

villages, whose inhabitants love or rather idolize me. Come this

way, and I will clothe you in a jacket of the same stuff as mine.

If you think well of it, you shall share with me the pleasures of

the life I lead; and, if it does not hit your fancy, you shall

not only be at liberty to leave me, but you may depend on it that

in the event of our parting, I shall not fail to do something

handsome by you.

 

I suffered myself to be persuaded, and followed the old hermit,

who put several questions to me, which I answered with a truth-telling simplicity, not always to be found in a more advanced

stage of morality. On our arrival at the hermitage he set some

fruit before me, which I devoured, having eaten nothing all day

but a slice of dry bread, on which I had breakfasted at the

hospital in the morning. The recluse, seeing me play so good a

part with my jaws, said: Courage, my good boy, do not spare my

fruit; there is plenty of it, Heaven be praised. I have not

brought you hither to starve you. And indeed that was true

enough; for an hour after our coming in, he kindled a fire, put a

leg of mutton down to roast; and while I turned the spit, laid a

small table for himself and me, with a very dirty napkin upon it.

 

When the meat was done enough he took it up, and cut some slices

for our supper, which was no dry bargain, since we quaffed a

delicious wine, of which he had laid in ample store. Well! my

chicken, said he, as he rose from table, are you satisfied with

my style of living? You see how we shall fare every day, if you

fix your quarters here. Then with respect to liberty, you shall

do just as you please in this hermitage. All I require of you is

to accompany me whenever I go begging to the neighbouring

villages; you will be of use in driving an ass laden with two

panniers, which the charitable peasants usually fill with eggs,

bread, meat, and fish. I ask no more than that. I will do, said

I, whatever you desire, provided you will not oblige me to learn

Latin. Friar Chrysostom, for that was the old hermit’s name,

could not help smiling at my schoolboy frowardness, and assured

me once more that he should not pretend to interfere either with

my studies or my inclinations.

 

On the very next day we went on a foraging party with the donkey,

which I led by the halter. We made a profitable gleaning; for all

the farmers took a pleasure in throwing somewhat into our

panniers. One chucked in an uncut loaf; another a large piece of

bacon; here a goose, there a pair of giblets, and a partridge to

crown the whole. But without entering further into particulars,

we carried home provender enough for a week; and hence you may

infer the esteem and friendship in which the country people held

the holy man. It is true that he was a great blessing to the

neighbourhood: his advice was always at their service when they

came to consult him: he restored peace where discord had reigned

in families, and made up matches for the daughters; he had a

nostrum for almost any disease you could mention, with an

assortment of pious rituals, to avert the curse of barrenness.

 

Hence you perceive that I was in no danger of starving in my

hermitage. My lodging, too, was none of the worst: stretched on

good fresh straw, with a cushion of ratteen under my head, and a

coverlet over me of the same stuff I made but one nap of it all

night. Brother Chrysostom, who had promised me a hermit’s dress,

made up an old gown of his own for me, and called me little

brother Scipio. No sooner did I appear in my religious uniform,

than the ass’s back suffered for my genteel appearance in the

eyes of the villagers. It was who should give most to the little

brother! so much were they delighted with his spruce figure.

 

The easy, slothful life I led with the old hermit could not be

very revolting to a boy of my age. On the contrary, it suited my

taste so exactly, that I should have continued it to this time,

but that the fates and destinies were weaving a more complicated

tissue for my future years. It was cast in the figure of my

nativity, early to rouse myself from the effeminacy of a

religious life, and to take leave of brother Chrysostom after the

following manner.

 

I often observed the old man at work upon his pillow, unsewing

and sewing it up again; and one day, I saw him put in some money.

This circumstance excited a tingling curiosity, which I promised

myself to satisfy the first time he went to