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

Toledo, as he

generally did once a week. I waited impatiently for the day, but

as yet, without any other motive than the mere desire of prying.

At last the good man went his way, and I unpicked his pillow,

where I found, among the stuffing, the amount of about fifty

crowns in all sorts of coin.

 

This treasure must have accumulated from the gratitude of the

peasantry, whom the hermit had cured by his nostrums, and of

their wives, who had be come pregnant by virtue of his spiritual

interference. But however it got there, I no sooner set my eyes

on the money, which might be mine without any one near me to say

nay, than the gipsy voice of nature and pedigree spoke within me.

An inextinguishable itch of pilfering tingled in my veins, and

proved that we come into the world with the mark of our descent,

and with our characters about us. I yielded to the temptation

without a struggle; tied up my booty in a canvas bag where we

kept our combs and nightcaps: then, having laid aside the

hermit’s and resumed my foundling’s dress, got clear off from the

hermitage, and hugged my bag as though it had contained the

boundless treasure of the Indies.

 

You have heard my first exploit, continued Scipio; and I doubt

not but you will expect a succession of similar practices. Your

anticipations will not be disappointed; for there are many such

evidences of genius behind, before I come to those of my actions

which prove me good as well as clever; but I shall come to them,

and you will be convinced by the sequel, that a scoundrel born

may be licked into virtue, as the cub of a bear into shape.

 

Child as I was, I knew better than to take the Toledo road; it

would have been exposing myself to the hazard of meeting friar

Chrysostom, who would have balanced accounts with me on a very

thriftless principle. I therefore travelled in another direction

leading to the village of Galves, where I stopped at an inn, kept

by a landlady who was a widow of forty, and hung out the bunch of

grapes to a very good purpose. This good woman no sooner kenned

me, than, judging by my dress that I must be a truant from the

orphan school, she asked who I was and whither I was going. I

answered that, having lost my father and mother, I was looking

for a place. Can you read, my dear? said she. I assured her that

I could read, and write too, with the best of them. In point of

fact, I could just form my letters, and join them so as to look a

little like writing; and that was clerkship enough for a village

pothouse. Then I will take you into my service, replied the

hostess. You may earn your board easily enough, by scoring up the

customers, and keeping my ledger. I shall give you no wages,

because this inn is frequented by very genteel company, who never

forget the waiters. You may reckon upon very considerable

perquisites.

 

I clenched the bargain, reserving to myself, as you may suppose,

the right of emigration whenever my abode at Galves should cease

to be pleasant. No sooner was I settled in my place, than a

weight lay heavy on my mind. I did not wish it to be known that I

had money; and it was no easy matter to devise where it could be

hidden, so as that what was sauce for the goose should not be

sauce for the gander. I was not yet well enough acquainted with

the house to trust the places obviously most proper for such a

deposit. What a source of embarrassment is great wealth! I

determined, however, on a corner of our granary under some straw;

and believing it to be safer there than anywhere else, made

myself as easy about it as I well could.

 

The household consisted of three servants: a lubberly ostler, a

young Galician chambermaid, and myself. Each of us spunged what

we could upon travellers, whether on foot or on horseback. I

always came in for some small change, when the bill was paid.

Then the equestrians gave something to the ostler, for taking

care of their beasts: but as for our female fellow-servant, the

muleteers who passed that way chucked her under the chin, and

gave her more crowns than we got farthings. I had no sooner

realized a penny, than away it went to the granary, and slept

with its precursors; so that the higher rose my heap, the more

greedy did my little heart become. Sometimes would I kiss the

hallowed images of my idolatry, and look at them with a

devotional glow, which few worshippers feel, but those whose

religion is their gold.

 

This inordinate passion sent me back and fore to gratify it, at

least thirty times a day. I often met the landlady on the

staircase. She, being naturally of a suspicious temper, had a

mind to find out one day what could carry me every minute to the

corn-loft. She therefore went up and began rummaging about

everywhere, supposing perhaps that it was my receptacle for

articles purloined in the house. Of course she did not forget to

pull the straw about; and behold, there was my bag! Two hands in

a dish and one in a purse, was not one of her proverbs; so that

finding the contents in crowns and pistoles, she thought, or

seemed to think, that the money was lawfully and honestly hers.

At least she had possession, and that is nine points of the law,

though scarcely one of honesty. But to do the thing decently,

after calling me little wretch, little rascal, and so forth, she

ordered the ostler, a fellow without any will but hers, to give

me a hearty flogging; and then turn me out of doors, with this

salt eel for my breakfast, and a lady-like oath that no light-fingered gentry should ever darken her doors. In vain did I

protest and vow that I never wronged my mistress: she affirmed

the direct contrary, and her word would go further than mine at

any time. Thus were friar Chrysostom’s savings transferred from

one thief to a greater thief in the thief-taker.

 

I wept over the loss of my money, as a father over the death of

his only son: and though my tears could not bring back what I had

lost, they at least answered the purpose of exciting pity in some

people, who saw how bitterly they flowed, and among others in the

parson, who was accidentally going by. He seemed affected by my

sad plight, and took me home with him. There, to gain my

confidence, or rather to pump me, he began soothing my sorrows.

How much this poor child is to be pitied! said he. Is it any

wonder if, thrown upon the wide world at so tender an age, he has

committed a bad action? Grown up men are not always proof against

the flesh or the devil. Then, addressing me, Child, added he,

front what part of Spain do you come, and who are your parents?

You have the look of family about you. Open your heart to me

confidentially, and depend upon it, I never will desert you.

 

His reverence, by this kind and insinuating language, engaged me

by degrees to tell him all my history, without falsification or

reserve. I owned everything; and thus he moralized on the leading

article of my confession: My little friend, though hermits ought

to lay up such treasures as neither force nor fraud can wrest

from them, that was no excuse for your taking the measure of

punishment into your own hands: by robbing brother Chrysostom,

you nevertheless sinned against that article of the decalogue,

which tells you not to steal; but I will engage to make the

hostess return the money, and will punctually remit it to the

reverend friar at his hermitage: you may therefore make your

conscience perfectly easy on that score. Now, between ourselves,

my conscience was perfectly callous to everything like

compunction with respect to the crime in question. The parson,

who had his own ends to answer, had not done with me yet. My lad,

pursued he, I mean to take you by the hand, and find a good berth

for you. I shall send you to-morrow morning, by the carrier, to

my nephew, a canon of Toledo. He will not refuse, at my request,

to admit you upon his establishment, where they live like so many

sons of the church, rosily, merrily, and fatly, upon the rents of

his prebendal stall: you will be perfectly comfortable there,

take my word for it.

 

Patronage like this gave me so much encouragement, that I did not

throw away another thought either upon my bag or my whipping. My

mind was wholly occupied with the idea of living rosily, merrily,

and fatly, like a son of the church. The following day, at

breakfast-time, there came, according to orders, a muleteer to

the parsonage, with two mules saddled and bridled. They helped me

to mount one, the muleteer flung his leg over the other, and we

trotted on for Toledo. My fellow-traveller was a good, pleasant

companion, arid desired nothing better than to indulge his humour

at the expense of his neighbour. My little volunteer, said he,

you have a good friend in his reverence, the minister of Galves.

He could not give you a better proof of his kindness, than by

placing you with his nephew the canon, whom I have the honour of

knowing, far beyond all question or comparison, to be the cock of

the chapter, and a hearty one he is. None of your lantern-jawed

saints, with Lent in his face, a cat-of-nine-tails on his back,

and a cholera morbus in his belly. No such thing! Our doctor is

rubicund in the jowl, efflorescent on the nose, with a wicked eye

at a bumper or a girl militant against no earthly pleasure, but

most addicted to the good things of the table. You will be as

snug there as a bug in a blanket.

 

This hangman of a muleteer, perceiving with what exquisite

satisfaction I took in all this, went on tantalizing me with the

joys of an ecclesiastical life. He never dropped the subject till

we got to the village of Obisa, and stopped there to refresh our

mules. Then, while bustling about the inn, he accidentally

dropped a paper from his pocket, which I was cunning enough to

pick up without his seeing me, and took an opportunity of reading

while he was in the stable. It was a letter addressed to the

governors and superintendents of the orphan school, conceived in

these terms: “Gentlemen, I consider it as an act at once of

charity and of duty, to send you back a little truant; he seems a

shrewd lad enough, and may do very well with good looking after.

By dint of hard and frequent chastisement, I doubt not but you

will ultimately bring him to a sense of his own unworthiness and

your benevolence. May a blessing be vouchsafed on your pious and

charitable labours, for the early extirpation of sin and

wickedness! (Signed) “THE MINISTER OF GALVES.”

 

When I had finished reading this pleasant letter, which let me

into the good intentions of his reverence the rector, it required

little deliberation to determine what I was to do: from the inn

to the banks of the Tagus, a space of three good miles, was but a

hop, step, and jump. Fear lent me wings to escape from the

governors of the foundling hospital, whither I was absolutely

resolved never to return, having formed principles of taste

diametrically opposite to