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

and I gathered from the landlord’s description that

you were most likely to have been my cousin’s deliverer. Since

then I have found you out, you shall know by experience my

gratitude to the friends of my family, and especially to my dear

cousin’s hero. You will take up your abode, if you please, at my

house. Your accommodations will be better. I wished to excuse

myself; and told the lady that I could not be so troublesome: but

her importunities were more than a match for my modesty. A

carriage was waiting at the door of the inn to convey us. She saw

my portmanteau taken care of with her own eyes, because, as she

justly observed, there were a great many light-fingered gentry

about Valladolid — to be sure there were a great many light-fingered gentry about Valladolid, as she justly observed! In

short, I got into the carriage with her and the old usher, and

suffered myself to be carried off bodily from the inn, to the

great annoyance of the landlord, who saw himself thus weaned from

all the little perquisites he had reckoned on from my abode under

his roof.

 

Our carriage, having rolled on some distance, stopped. We

alighted at the door of a handsome house, and went upstairs into

a well-furnished apartment, illuminated by twenty or thirty wax

candles. Several servants were in waiting, of whom the lady

inquired whether Don Raphael was come. They answered, No. She

then addressed herself to me: Signor Gil Blas, I am waiting for

my brother’s return from a country seat of ours, about two

leagues distant. What an agreeable surprise will it be to him to

find a man under his roof to whom our family is so much indebted!

At the very moment she had finished this pretty speech we heard a

noise, and were informed at the same time that it was occasioned

by the arrival of Don Raphael. This spark soon made his

appearance. He was a young man of portly figure and genteel

manners. I am in ecstacy to see you back again, brother, said the

lady; you will assist me in doing the honours to Signor Gil Blas

of Santillane. We can never do enough to show our sense of his

kindness to our kinswoman, Donna Mencia. Here, read this letter I

have just received. Don Raphael opened the envelope, and read

aloud as follows:

 

My dear Camilla, Signor Gil Blas of Santillane, the saviour of my

honour and my life, has just set out for court. He will of course

pass through Valladolid. I conjure you by our family connection,

and still more by our indissoluble friendship, to give him an

hospitable reception, and to detain him for some time as your

guest. I flatter myself that you will so far oblige me, and that

my deliverer will receive every kind of polite attention from

yourself, and my cousin, Don Raphael. Your affectionate cousin,

 

DONNA MENCIA.

 

Burgos.

 

What! cried Don Raphael, casting his eyes again over the letter,

is it to this gentleman my kinswoman owes her honour and her

life? Then heaven be praised for this happy meeting. With this

sort of language, he advanced to wards me; and squeezing me

tightly in his arms: What joy to me is it, added he, to have the

honour of seeing Signor Gil Blas of Santillane! My cousin the

marchioness had no need to press the hospitality. Had she only

told us simply that you were passing through Valladolid, that

would have been enough. My sister Camilla and I shall be at no

loss how to conduct ourselves towards a young gentleman who has

conferred an obligation, not to be repaid, on her of all our

family most tenderly beloved by us. I made the best answer I

could to these speeches, which were followed by many others of

the same kind, and interlarded with a thousand bows and scrapes.

But Lord bless me, he has his boots on! The servants were ordered

in, to take them ofF.

 

We next went into another room, where the cloth was lain. Down we

sat at table, the brother, sister, and myself. They paid me a

hundred compliments during supper. Not a word escaped me, but

they magnified it into an admirable hit! It was impossible not to

observe the assiduity with which they both helped me out of every

dish. Don Raphael often pledged me to Donna Mencia’s health. I

could not refuse the challenge; and it looked a little as if

Camilla, who was a very good companion, ogled at me with no

questionable meaning. I even thought I could perceive that she

watched her opportunity, as if she was afraid of being detected

by her brother. An oracle could not have convinced me more firmly

that the lady was caught; and I looked forward to a little

delicate amusement from the discovery, during the short time I

was to stay at Valladolid. That hope was my tempter to comply

with the request they made me, of condescending to pass a few

days with them. They thanked me kindly for indulging them with my

company; and Camilla’s restrained, but visible transport,

confirmed me in the opinion that I was not altogether

disagreeable in her eyes.

 

Don Raphael, finding I had made up my mind to be his guest for a

few days, proposed to take me to his country house. The

description of it was magnificent, and the round of amusements he

meditated for me was not to be described. At one time, said he,

we will take the diversion of the chase, at another that of

fishing; and whenever you have a mind for a saunter, we have

charming woods and gardens. In addition, we shall have agreeable

society. I flatter myself you will not find the time hang heavy

on your hands. I accepted the invitation, and it was agreed that

we should go to this fine country house the following day. We

rose from the table with this pleasant scheme in our mouths. Don

Raphael seemed in ecstacy. Signor Gil Blas, said he, embracing

me, I leave you with my sister. I am going presently to give the

necessary orders, and send invitations round to the families I

wish to be of the party. With these words he sallied forth from

the room where we were sitting. I went on chatting with the lady,

whose topics of discourse did not bely the glances of her

expressive eyes. She took me by the hand, and playing with my

ring, You have a mighty pretty brilliant there, said she, but it

is small. Are you a judge of jewellery? I answered, no! I am

sorry for that, resumed she, because I was in hopes you could

have told me what this is worth. As she uttered these words, she

showed me a large ruby on her finger; and, while I was looking at

it, said — An uncle of mine, who was governor of the Spanish

settlements in the Philippine isles, gave me this ruby. The

jewellers at Valladolid value it at three hundred pistoles. It

cannot be worth less, said I, for it is evidently a very fine

stone. Why, then, since you have taken a fancy to it, replied

she, an exchange is no robbery. In a twinkling she whisked off my

ring, and placed her own on my little finger. After this

exchange, a genteel way enough of making a present, Camilla

pressed my hand and gazed at me with expressive tenderness; then,

all at once breaking off the conversation, wished me good night,

and re tired to hide her blushes, as if she had been ready to

sink at the indiscreet avowal of her sentiments.

 

No one hitherto had trod less in the paths of gallantry than

myself! Yet I could not shut my eyes to the vista vision opened

to me by this precipitate retreat. Under these circumstances, a

country excursion might have its charms. Full of this flattering

idea, and intoxicated with the prosperous condition of my

affairs, I locked myself into my bed-room, after having told my

servant to call me betimes in the morning. Instead of going to

sleep, I gave myself up to the agreeable reflections which my

portmanteau, snug upon the table, and my ruby excited in my

breast. Heaven be praised, thought I, though misfortunes have

been my lot, I am unfortunate no longer. A thousand ducats here,

a ring of three hundred pistoles’ value there! I am in cash for a

considerable time. In deed Majuelo was no flatterer, I see

clearly. The ladies of Madrid will take fire like touchwood,

since the green sticks of Valladolid are so inflammable. Then the

kind regards of the generous Camilla arrayed themselves in all

their charms, and I tasted by anticipation the amusements Don

Raphael was preparing for me at his villa. In the mean while,

amid so many images of pleasure, sleep was on the watch to strew

his poppies on my couch. As soon as I felt myself drowsy, I

undressed and went to bed.

 

The next morning, when I awoke, I found it rather late. It was

odd enough that my servant did not make his appearance, after

such particular orders. Ambrose, thought I to myself, my devout

Ambrose is either at church, or abominably lazy this morning. But

I soon let go this opinion of him to take up a worse; for getting

out of bed, and seeing no portmanteau, I suspected him to have

stolen it during the night. To clear up my suspicions, I opened

my chamber door, and called the religious rascal over and over

again. An old man answered, saying — What is your pleasure,

sir? All your folks left my house before daybreak. Your house!

How now! exclaimed I; am I not under Don Raphael’s roof? I do not

know the gentleman, said he. You are in a ready-furnished

lodging, and I am the landlord. Yesterday evening, an hour before

your arrival, the lady who supped with you came hither, and

engaged this suite of apartments for a nobleman of high rank,

travelling incognito, as she called it. She paid me beforehand. I

was now in the secret. It was plain enough what sort of people

Camilla and Don Raphael were; and I conjectured that my servant,

having wormed himself into a complete knowledge of my concerns,

had betrayed me to these impostors. Instead of blaming myself for

this sad accident, and considering that it could never have

happened but for my indiscretion in so unnecessarily betraying my

confidence to Majuelo, I gave bad language to the poor harmless

dame fortune, and cursed my ill star in a hundred different

formularies. The master of the ready-furnished lodging, to whom I

related the adventure, which perhaps was as much his as mine,

showed some little outward sensibility to my affliction. He

lamented over me, and protested he was deeply mortified that such

a play should have been acted in his house; but I verily believe,

not withstanding his fine words, that he had an equal share in

the cheat with mine host at Burgos, to whom I have never denied

the merit of so ingenious an invention.

 

CH. XVII. — The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of

the ready-furnished lodging.

 

AFTER the first transports of my grief were over, I began to

consider, that instead of giving way to remorse, I ought rather

to bear up against my ill fate. I summoned back my resolution,

and, by way of comfort, said to myself as I was dressing — I am

still in luck that the knaves have not carried off my clothes and

what little money I had in my pocket. I gave them some credit for

being so considerate. They had even been generous enough to leave

me my