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

her for fobbing

me off with the cold recompense of approbation. The good lady was

so abominably avaricious, as not to give me a working partner’s

share in the profits of my industry, nor to allow for the wear

and tear of my conscience. She seemed inclined to consider, that

by paying me my wages, all the requisitions of Christian charity

were made good between us. This excess of illiberal economy would

soon have parted us, had it not been for the fascination of

Catalina’s gentle virtues, who became more desperately in love

with me from day to day, and completed the paroxysm by a formal

proposal of marriage.

 

Fair and softly, my pretty friend, said I: we must look before we

leap into that bottomless gulf: the first point to be settled is

to ascertain the death of a young woman, who obtained the refusal

before you, and made me supremely happy, for no other purpose but

to anticipate the purgatory of an intermediate state in the

present. All a mere sham, a put off! answered Catalina: you swear

you are married only by way of throwing a genteel veil over your

abhorrence of my person and manners. In vain did I call all the

powers to witness, that what I said was solemnly true: my sincere

avowal was considered as a mere copy of my countenance; the lady

was grievously offended, and changed her whole behaviour in

regard to me. There was no downright quarrel; but our tender

intercourse became visibly more rigid and unaccommodating, so

that nothing further took place between us but cold formality and

commonplace attentions.

 

Just at the nick of time, I heard that Signor Gil Blas de

Santillane, secretary to the prime minister of the Spanish

monarchy, wanted a servant; and the situation was the more

flattering, as it bore the bell among all the vacancies of the

court register office. Signor de Santillane, they told me, was

one of the first men, high in favour with the Duke of Lerma, and

consequently in the direct road to fortune: his heart, too, was

cast in the mould of generosity: by doing his business, you most

assuredly did your own. The opportunity was too good to be

neglected I went and offered myself to Signor Gil Blas, to whom I

felt my heart grow from the first; for my sentiments were fixed

by the turn of his physiognomy. There could be no question about

leaving the royal and most catholic nurse for him; and it is to

be hoped, I shall never have any other master.

 

Here ended Scipio’s story. But he continued speaking, and

addressed himself to me. Signor de Santillane, do me the favour

to assure those ladies that you have always known me for a

faithful and zealous servant. Your testimony will stand me in

good stead, and vouch for a sincere reformation in the son of

Coselina.

 

Yes, ladies, said I, it is even so. Though Scipio in his

childhood was a very scape-grace, he has been born anew, and is

now the exact model of a trusty domestic. Far from having any

complaints to make against him, my debt is infinite. On the fatal

night when I was earned off to the tower of Segovia, he saved my

effects from pillage, and refunded what he might have taken to

himself with impunity: not contented with rescuing my worldly

pelf, he came out of pure friendship and shut himself up with me

in my prison, preferring the melancholy sympathies of adverse

fortune to all the charms of lusty, buoyant liberty.

 

BOOK THE ELEVENTH.

 

CH. I. — Containing the subject of the greatest joy that Gil

Blas ever felt, followed up, as our greatest pleasures too

generally are, by the most melancholy event of his life. Great

changes at court, producing, among other important revolutions,

the return of Santillane.

 

I HAVE observed already that Antonia and Beatrice understood one

another perfectly well; the latter falling meekly and modestly

into the trammels of an humble attendant on her lady, and the

former taking very kindly to the rank of a mistress and superior.

Scipio and myself were husbands too rich in nature’s gifts and in

the affections of our spouses, not very soon to have the

satisfaction of becoming fathers: our lasses were as women wish

to be who love their lords, almost at the same moment. Beatrice’s

time was up first: she was safely delivered of a daughter; and in

a few days afterwards Antonia completed the general joy, by

presenting me with a son. I sent my secretary to Valencia with

the welcome tidings: the governor came to Lirias with Seraphina

and the Marchioness de Pliego, to be present at the baptismal

ceremony; for he made it his pleasure to add this testimony of

affection to all his former kindnesses. As that nobleman stood

godfather, and the Marchioness godmother to my son, he was named

Alphonse; and the governor’s lady, wishing to draw the bonds of

sponsorship still closer in this friendly party, stood for

Scipio’s daughter, to whom we gave the name of Seraphina.

 

The rejoicings at the birth of my son were not confined to the

mansion-house; the villagers of Lirias celebrated the event by

festivities, which were meant as a grateful token, to prove how

much the little neighbourhood partook in all the satisfactions of

their landlord. But, alas! our carousals were of short

continuance; or, to speak more suitably to the subject, they were

turned into weeping, wailing, and lamentation, by a catastrophe

which more than twenty years have not been sufficient to blot

from my memory, nor will future time, however distant, make me

think of it but with the bitterest retrospect. My son died; and

his mother, though perfectly recovered from her confinement, very

soon followed him: a violent fever carried off my dear wife,

after we had been married fourteen months. Let the reader

conceive, if he is equal to the task, the grief with which I was

overwhelmed: I fell into a stupid insensibility; and felt my loss

so severely, as to seem not to feel it at all. I remained in this

condition for five or six days, in an obstinate determination to

take no nourishment; and I verily believe that, had it not been

for Scipio, I should either have starved myself, or my heart

would have burst; but my secretary, well knowing how to

accommodate himself to the turnings and windings of the human

heart, contrived to cheat my sorrows by fitting in with their

tone and tenor: he was artful enough to reconcile me to the duty

of taking food, by serving up soups and lighter fare with so

disconsolate an arrangement of features that it looked as if he

urged me to the revolting employment, not so much to preserve my

life, as to perpetuate and render immortal my affliction.

 

This affectionate servant wrote to Don Alphonso, to let him know

of the misfortune which had happened to me, and my lamentable

condition in consequence. That tender-hearted and compassionate

nobleman, that generous friend, very soon repaired to Lirias. I

cannot recall the moment when he first presented himself to my

view without even now being sensibly affected. My dear

Santillane, said he, embracing me, I am not come to offer you

impertinent consolation; but to weep over Antonia with you, as

you would have wept with me over Seraphina, had the hand of death

snatched her from me. In good truth, his tears bore testimony to

his sincerity, and his sighs were blended with mine in the most

friendly sympathy. Though overwhelmed with my affliction, I felt

in the most lively manner the kindness of Don Alphonso.

 

The governor had a long conversation with Scipio respecting the

measures to be taken for overcoming my despair. They judged it

best to remove me for some time from Lirias, where every object

incessantly brought back to my mind the image of Antonia. On this

account the son of Don Caesar proposed carrying me back with him

to Valencia; and my secretary seconded the plan with so many

unanswerable arguments, that I made no further opposition. I left

Scipio and his wife on my estate, where my longer stay could have

produced no other effect but that of aggravating and enhancing

all my sorrows, and took my own departure with the governor. On

my arrival at Valencia, Don Caesar and his daughter-in-law spared

no exertions to divert my sorrows from perpetual brooding; they

plied me alternately with every sort of amusement, the most

proper to turn the current of my thoughts to passing objects;

but, in spite of all their pains, I remained plunged in

melancholy, whence they were incompetent to draw me out. Nor was

it for want of Scipio’s kind attentions that my peace of mind was

still so hopeless: he was continually going back and fore between

Lirias and Valencia to inquire after me; and his journey home was

cheerful or gloomy, in proportion as he found more or less

disposition in me to listen to the words of comfort, and to

reward the affectionate solicitude of my friends.

 

He came one morning into my room. Sir, said he, with a great deal

of agitation in his manner, a report is current about town, in

which the whole monarchy is deeply interested it is said that

Philip the Third has departed this life, and that the prince, his

son, is actually seated on the throne. To this it is added, that

the cardinal Duke of Lerma has lost the premiership, that he is

even forbidden to appear at court, and that Don Gaspard de

Guzman, Count of Olivarez, is actually at the head of the

administration. I felt a little agitated by this sudden change,

without knowing why. Scipio caught at this manifestation, and

asked whether the veering of the wind in the political horizon

might not blow me some good. How is that possible? What good can

it blow me, my worthy friend? answered I. The court and I have

shaken hands once for all: the revolutions which may take place

there are all alike indifferent to me.

 

For a man at your time of life, replied that cunning son of a

diviner, you are uncommonly mortified to all the uses of this

world. Under your circumstances my curiosity would be all alive;

I should go to Madrid and show my face to the young monarch, just

to see whether he would recollect it, merely for the amusement of

the thing. I understand you, said I; you would have me return to

court and try my fortune again, or rather you would plunge me

back into the gulf of avarice and ambition. Why should such

baleful passions any more take possession of your breast?

rejoined Scipio. Do not so much play the calumniator on your own

virtue. I will answer for your firmness to yourself. The sound

moral reflections which your disgrace has occasioned you to make

on the vanities of a court life, are a sufficient security

against all the dangers to be feared from that quarter. Embark

boldly once again upon an ocean where are acquainted with every

shoal and rock in the dangerous navigation. Hold your tongue, you

flatterer, said I, with a smile of no very positive

discouragement; are you weary of seeing me lead a retired and

tranquil life? I thought my repose had been more dear to you.

 

Just at this period of our conversation, Don Caesar and his son

came in. They confirmed the news of the king’s death, as well as

the Duke of Lerma’s misfortune. It appeared, moreover, that this

minister, having requested permission to retire to Rome, had not

been able to obtain it, but was ordered to confine himself to his

marquisate at Denia. On this, as if they had been in