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

my compliment still thicker, if words were not

wanting to express the effect of her first appearance upon my

mind. I set my wits to work, and by dint of diligent inquiry,

learned that her name was Beatrice, and that she was waiting-maid

to Donna Julia, younger daughter of the Count de Polan.

 

Beatrice broke in upon the thread of Scipio’s story by laughing

immoderately: then, directing her speech to my wife, Charming

Antonia, said she, do but just look at me, I beseech you, and

then say truly, whether I could be likened to a thing divine. You

might at that time, to my enamoured sight, said Scipio; and,

since your conjugal faith is no longer under a cloud, my visual

appetite increases by what it feeds on. It was a pretty

compliment! and my secretary, having fired it off, pursued his

narrative as follows.

 

This intelligence kindled the flame of passion within me; but

not, it must be confessed, a flame which could be acknowledged

without a blush. I took it for granted that my triumph over her

scruples would be easy if my biddings were high enough to command

the ordinary market of female chastity; but Beatrice was a pearl

beyond price. In vain did I solicit her, through the channel of

some intriguing gossips, with the offer of my purse and of my

most tender attentions; she rejected all my proposals with

disdain. I had recourse to the lover’s last remedy, and offered

her my hand, which she deigned to accept on the strength of my

being secretary and treasurer to Don Manriquez. As it seemed

expedient to keep our marriage secret for some time, the ceremony

was performed privately, in presence of Dame Lorenza Sephora,

Seraphina’s governess, and before some others of the Count de

Polan’s household. After our happy union, Beatrice contrived the

means of our meeting by day, and passing some part of every night

together in the garden, whither I repaired through a little gate

of which she gave me a key. Never were man and wife better

pleased with each other than Beatrice and myself: with equal

impatience did we watch for the hour of our appointment; with

congenial emotions of eager sensibility did we hasten to the

spot, and the moments which we passed together, though countless

from their number in the calendar of cold indifference, to us

were few and fleeting, in comparison with that eternity of mutual

bliss for which we panted.

 

One night, a night which should be expunged from the almanac, a

night of darkness and despair, contrasted with the brightness of

all our former nights, I was surprised on approaching the garden,

to find the little gate open. This unusual circumstance alarmed

me; for it seemed to augur something inauspicious to my

happiness: I turned pale and trembled, as if with a foreknowledge

of what was going to happen. Advancing in the dark towards a

bower, where our private meetings had usually taken place, I

heard a man’s voice. I stopped on the instant to listen, when the

following words struck like the sound of death upon my ear: Do

not keep me languishing in suspense, my dear Beatrice; make my

happiness complete, and consider that your own fortunes are

closely connected with mine. Instead of having patience to hear

further, it seemed as if more had been said than blood could

expiate; that devil, jealousy, took possession of my soul; I drew

my sword, and breathing only vengeance, rushed into the bower.

Ah! base seducer, cried I, whoever you are, you shall tear this

heart from out my breast, rather than touch my honour on its

tenderest point. With these words on my lips, I attacked the

gentleman who was talking with Beatrice. He stood upon his guard

without more ado, like a man much better acquainted with the

science of arms than myself, who had only received a few lessons

from a fencing-master at Cordova. And yet, strong as his sword-arm was, I made a thrust which he could not parry, or what is

more likely, his foot slipped: I saw him fall; and fancying that

I had wounded him mortally, ran away as hard as my legs could

carry me, without deigning to answer Beatrice, who would have

called me back.

 

Yes, indeed! said Scipio’s wife, resolved to have her share in

the development of the story; I called out for the purpose of

undeceiving him. The gentleman conversing with me in the arbour

was Don Ferdinand de Leyva. This nobleman, who was in love with

my mistress Julia, had laid a plan for running away with her,

from despair of being able to obtain her hand by any other means;

and I had myself made this assignation with him in the garden, to

concert measures for the elopement, and with his fortune he

assured me that my own was closely linked; but it was in vain

that I screamed after my husband; he darted from me as if my very

touch were contamination.

 

In such a state of mind, resumed Scipio, I was capable of

anything. Those who know by experience what jealousy is, into

what extravagance it drives the best-regulated spirits, will be

at no loss to conceive the disorder it must have produced in my

weak brain. I passed in a moment from one extreme to an other:

emotions of hatred succeeded instantaneously to all my former

sentiments of affection for my wife. I took an oath never to see

her more, and to banish her for ever from my memory. Besides, the

supposed death of a man lay upon my conscience; and under that

idea, I was afraid of falling into the hands of justice; so that

every torment which could be accumulated on the head of guilt and

misery by the fury of despair and the demon of remorse, was the

remediless companion of my wretched flight In this dreadful

situation, thinking only of my escape, I returned home no more,

but immediately quitted Toledo, with no other provision for my

journey but the clothes on my back. It is true, I had about sixty

pistoles in my pocket; a tolerable supply for a young man, whose

views in life pointed no higher than a good service.

 

I walked forward all night, or rather ran, for the phantom of an

alguazil always dogging me at the heels made me perform wonders

of pedestrian activity. The dawn overtook me between Rodillas and

Maqueda. When I was at the latter town, finding myself a little

weary, I went into the church which was just opened, and having

put up a short prayer, sat down on a bench to rest. I began

musing on the state of my affairs, which were sufficiently out at

elbows to require all my skill in patch-work, but the time for

reflection as well as for repentance were cut short. The church

echoed on a sudden with three or four smacks of a whip, which

made me conclude that some carrier was on the road. I immediately

got up to go and see whether I was right or wrong. At the door I

found a man, mounted on a mule, leading two others by the halter.

Stop, my friend, said I, whither are those two mules going? To

Madrid, answered he. I came hither with two good Dominicans, and

am now setting out on my return.

 

Such an opportunity of going to Madrid gave me an itching desire

for the expedition: I made my bargain with the muleteer, jumped

upon one of his mules, and away we scampered towards Ilescas,

where we were to put up for the night. Scarcely were we out of

Maqueda before the muleteer, a man from five-and-thirty to forty,

began chanting the church service with a most collegiate twang.

This trial of his lungs began with matins, in the drowsy tone of

a canon between asleep and awake; then he roared out the Belief;

alternately in contralto, tenor, and bass, in all the harmonious

confusion of high mass; and not content with that, he rang the

bell for vespers, without sparing me a single petition or so much

as a bar of the magnificat. Though the scoundrel almost cracked

the drum of my ear, I could not help laughing heartily; and even

egged him on to make the welkin reverberate with his hallelujahs,

when the anthem was suspended a few rests, for the necessary

purpose of supplying wind to the organ. Courage, my friend! said

I; go on and prosper. If heaven has given you a good capacious

throat, you are neither a niggard nor a perverter of its precious

boon. Oh! certainly not for the matter of that, cried he; happily

for my immortal soul, I am not like carriers in general, who sing

nothing but profane songs about love or drinking: I do not even

defile my lips with ballads on our wars against the Moors: such

subjects are at least light and unedifying, if not licentious and

impure. You have, replied I, an evangelical purity of heart which

belongs only to the elect among muleteers. With this excessive

squeamishness of yours about the choice of your music, have you

also taken a vow of continence, wherever there is a young bar-maid to be picked up at an inn? Assuredly, rejoined he, chastity

is also a virtue by which it is my pride to ward off the

temptations of the road, where my only business is to look after

my mules. I was in no small degree astonished at such pious

sentiments from this prodigy of psalm-singing mule-drivers; so

that looking upon him as a man above the vanities and corruptions

of this nether world, I fell into chat with him after he had gone

the length of his tether in singing.

 

We got to Ilescas late in the day. On entering the inn-yard, I

left the care of the mules to my companion, and went into the

kitchen, where I ordered the landlord to get us a good supper,

which he promised to perform so much to my satisfaction, as to

make me remember all the days of my life what usage travellers

meet with at his house As, added he, now only ask your carrier

what sort of a man I am. By all the powers of seasoning! I would

defy the best cook in Madrid or Toledo to make an olio at all to

be compared to mine. I shall treat you this evening with some

stewed rabbit after a receipt of my own; you will then see

whether it is any boast to say that I know how to send up a

supper. Thereupon, shewing me a stew-pan with a young rabbit, as

he said, cut up into pieces: There, continued he, is what I mean

to favour you with. When I shall have thrown in a little pepper,

some salt, wine, a handful of sweet herbs, and a few other

ingredients which I keep for my own sauces, you may depend on

sitting down to such a dish as would not disgrace the table of a

chancellor or an archbishop.

 

The landlord, having thus done justice to his own merits, began

to work upon the materials he had prepared. While he was

labouring in his vocation, I went into a room, where lying down

on a sort of couch, I fell fast asleep through fatigue, having

taken no rest the night before, in the space of about two hours,

the muleteer came and awakened me, with the information that

supper was ready, and a pressing request to take my place at

table. The cloth was laid for two, and we sat down to the hashed

rabbit. I played my knife and fork most manfully, finding the

flavour delicious, whether from the force of hunger in

communicating a candid mode of interpretation to my palate,