of young Velasquez made me think seriously on my own predicament. I
began to wrestle with my thievish propensities, and to live like one
of the better sort. A confirmed habit of pouncing upon money
wherever I could get it, had been contracted by such a long
succession of individual acts, that it was no easy matter to say
where it should stop. And yet I was in hopes to accomplish my own
reformation, under the idea that to become virtuous, a man had
nothing to do but to contract the desire of being so. I therefore
undertook this great work, and heaven seemed to smile upon my
efforts. I left off eying the old draper's strong box with the
carnal regard of avaricious longing: nay, I verily believe, that if
it had depended on my own will and pleasure to have turned over the
contents to my own use, I should have abstained from the crime of
picking and stealing. It must, however, be admitted, that it would
have been an unadvisable measure to tempt my new-born integrity with
meats too strong for its stomach; and Velasquez was nurse enough to
keep me on a proper diet.
Don Manriquez de Medrano, a young gentleman, knight of Alcantara, was
in the habit of coming backwards and forwards to our house. He was a
customer, one of our principal in point of rank, if not punctual in
point of pay. I had the happiness to find favor with this knight,
who never met me without that sort of notice which encouraged
conversation, and with that conversation he appeared always to be
very much pleased. Scipio, said he, one day, if I had a footman of
your kidney, it would be as good as a fortune to me; and if you were
not in the service of a man who stands so high in my regards, I
should make no scruple about enticing you away. Sir, answered I, you
would have very little trouble in succeeding; for I am distractedly
partial to people of fashion; it is my weak side; their free and easy
manners fascinate me to the extreme of folly. That being the case,
replied Don Manriquez, I will at once beg Signor Balthasar to turn
you over from his household to mine: he will scarcely refuse me such
a request. Accordingly Velasquez was kind and complying, with so
much the less violence to his own private feelings, as there seemed
no reason to think, that if a man parted with one knavish servant, he
might not easily get another in his place. To me the change was all
for the better, since a tradesman's service appeared but a beggarly
condition, in comparison with the office of own man to a knight of
Alcantara.
To draw a faithful likeness of my new master, I must describe him as
a gentleman possessing every requisite of person, figure, manners,
and disposition. Nor was that all; for his courage and honor were
equal to his other qualities: the goods of fortune were the only good
things he wanted; but being the younger son of a family more
distinguished by descent than opulence, he was obliged to draw for
his expenses on an old aunt living at Toledo, who loved him as her
own child, and administered to his occasions with affectionate
liberality. He was always well dressed, and everywhere well
received. He visited the principal ladies in the city, and among
others the Marchioness of Almenara. She was a widow of seventy-two,
but the centre of attraction to all the fashionable society of
Cordova, by the elegance of her manners and the sprightliness of her
conversation: men as well as women laid themselves out for an
introduction, because her parties conferred at once on the
frequenters the patent of good company.
My master was one of that lady's most assiduous courtiers. After
leaving her one evening, his spirits seemed to be more elevated than
was natural to him. Sir, said I, you are evidently in a good deal of
agitation; may your faithful servant ask on what account? Has
anything happened out of the common way? The young gallant smiled at
so home a question, and owned candidly that he had just been engaged
in a serious conversation with the Marchioness of Almenara. I will
lay a wager, said I, laughing outright, that this moppet of
threescore and ten, this girl in her second childhood, has been
unfolding to you all the secret movements of a tender, susceptible
heart. Do not make a jest of it, answered he; for the fact is, my
friend, that the marchioness is seriously in love with me. She told
me that the narrowness of my circumstances was as well known to her
as the nobility of my birth; that she had taken a liking to me, and
was determined to place me at my ease by marriage, since she could
not decently lay her fortune at my feet on any other terms. That
this marriage would expose her to public ridicule, she professed to
have considered; that scandal would be busy at her expense; in short,
that she should pass for an old fool with an ambitious eye and a
lickerish constitution. No matter for that! She was not to be awed
from the career of her humor by quips and sentences: her only alarm
was, lest I should either make sport of her intentions, or torment
her more grievously by my aversion.
Such, continued the knight, was the substance of the marchioness's
declaration, and I am the more astonished at it because she is the
most prudent and sensible woman in Cordova; wherefore I answered by
expressing my surprise at her honoring me with the offer of her hand,
since she had hitherto persisted in her resolution of remaining in a
state of widowhood. To this she replied, that having a considerable
fortune, it would give her pleasure to share it in her lifetime with
a man of honor to whom she was attached. To all appearance, then,
rejoined I, you have made up your mind to take a lover's leap. Can
you doubt about that? answered he. The marchioness is immensely
rich, with excellent qualities both of head and heart. It would be
the extreme of folly and fastidiousness to let so advantageous a
settlement slip through my fingers.
I entirely approved my master's purpose of profiting by so fine an
opportunity to make his fortune, and even advised him to bring the
matter to a short issue, for fear of a change in the wind. Happily
the lady had the business more at heart than myself; her orders were
given so effectually, that the necessary forms and ceremonies were
soon got over. When it became known in Cordova that the old
Marchioness of Almenara was getting herself ready to be the bride of
young Don Manriquez de Medrano, the wits began breaking their odd
quirks and remnants in derision of the widow; but though she heard
her own detractions, she did not put them to mending; the town might
talk as they pleased; for when she said she would die a widow, she
did not think to live till she were married. The wedding was
solemnized with a publicity and splendor which furnished fresh food
for evil tongues. The bride, said they, might at least have had the
modesty to dispense with noise and ostentation, so unbecoming in an
old widow who marries a young husband.
The marchioness, far enough from yielding to the suggestions of shame
at her own inconsistency, or the disparity of their ages, yielded
herself up without constraint to the expression of the most lively
joy. She gave a grand concert and supper, with a ball afterwards,
and invited all the principal families in Cordova. Just before the
close of the ball, the new-married couple disappeared, and were shown
to an apartment, where, with no other witnesses but her own maid and
myself, she spoke to my master in these terms: Don Manriquez, this is
your apartment; mine is in another part of the house: we will pass
the night in separate rooms, and will live together by day like
mother and son. At first the knight did not know what to make of
this; he thought that the lady was only trying his temper, as if her
coldness must be wooed to kindness, and her love, like her pardon,
not unsought, be won. Imagining, therefore, that good manners
required, at least, the show of passion, he made his advances, and
offered, according to the laws of amorous suit enacted in such cases,
to assist in the disencumbering duties of her toilet; but, so far
from allowing him to interfere with the province of her servant, she
pushed him back with a serious air, saying, Hold, Don Manriquez; if
you take me for one of those sweet-toothed old women who marry a
second time from mere incontinence, you do me a manifest injustice:
my proposals were not fraught with conditions of hard service as the
tenure of our nuptial contract; the gift of my heart was unmixed with
sensual dross, and your gratitude is only drawn upon for returns of
pure and platonic friendship. After this explanation, she left my
master and me in our apartment, and withdrew to her own with her
attendant, forbidding the bridegroom, in the most positive manner, to
attempt retiring with her.
After her departure, it was some time before we recovered from our
surprise at what we had just heard. Scipio, said my master, could
you ever have believed that the marchioness would have talked in such
a strain? What think you of so philosophic a bride? I think, sir,
answered I, that she is a phoenix among the brood of hymen. It is
for all the world like a good living without parochial duties. For
my part, replied Don Manriquez, there is nothing so much to my taste
as a wife of modest pretensions; and I mean to make her amends for
the trophy she has raised to unadulterated esteem by all the delicate
attentions in my power to pay. We kept up the subject of the lady's
moderation till it was full time to separate. My quarters were fixed
in an anteroom with a book-case bedstead; my master's in an elegant
bed-chamber with every appurtenance except one: but however necessary
it might be to play the disappointed bridegroom, I am much mistaken
if in the bottom of his soul he was half so much afraid of sleeping
by himself as of being encumbered with a bedfellow.
The rejoicings began again on the following day, and the bride was so
jocund on the occasion, that the bolts of the fools among her
visitors were not soon shot. She was the first to laugh at all their
pointless jokes; nay, she even set the little wits to work, by giving
them an example of pleasantry, which they were very little able to
follow. The happy man, on his part, seemed to be very little less
happy than his partner; and one would have sworn, judging by the
glance of satisfaction which accompanied his language and deportment,
that he liked mutton better than lamb. This well-matched pair had a
second conversation in the evening; and then it was decided that,
without interfering in the least with one another, they should live
together just on the same footing as they had lived before marriage.
At all events, much credit must be given to Don Manriquez on one
account: he did, from delicate consideration towards his wife, what
few husbands would have done under his circumstances, for he
discarded a little seamstress of whom he was very fond, and who was
very fond of him, because he did not choose to keep up a connection
insulting to the feelings of a lady so studious of his.
While he was furnishing such unusual testimonies of gratitude to his
elderly benefactress, she overpaid and doubly paid her debt of
obligation, even without diving into its nature or extent. She gave
him the master key of her strong box, which was better provided than
that of Velasquez. Though she had reduced her establishment during
widowhood, it was now replaced upon the same footing as in the
lifetime of her first husband; the complement of household servants
was enlarged, the stud and equipages were in the very first style; in
a word, by her generosity and kindness, the most beggarly knight
belonging to the order of Alcantara became the most moneyed member of
the fraternity. You may perhaps be disposed to ask me how much I was
in pocket by all that; and my answer is, fifty pistoles from my
mistress, and a hundred from my master, who, moreover, appointed me
his secretary, with a salary of four hundred crowns; nay, his
confidence was so unbounded, that I was fixed on to fill the office
of treasurer.
Treasurer! cried I, interrupting Scipio at the very idea, and
bursting into an immoderate fit of laughter. Yes, sir, replied he,
with a cool, unflinching seriousness; you are perfectly
right--treasurer was the word; and I may venture to say that the
duties of the office were executed without the slightest occasion for
a committee of inquiry. True it is that the balance may be somewhat
against me, for I was always in the habit of overdrawing my wages;
and as the firm was dissolved somewhat suddenly, it is by no means
impossible that the balance of my cash account might be on the wrong
side: but, at all events, it was my last slip; and since that time my
ways have been ways of uprightness and honesty.
Thus was I, continued this son of a gypsy, secretary and treasurer to
Don Manriquez, who, to all appearance, was as happy in me as I in
him, when he received a letter from Toledo, announcing that his aunt,
Donna Theodora Moscoso, was on her last legs. He was so much
affected by the news as to set out instantly and pay his duty to that
lady, who had been more than a mother to him for several years. I
attended him on the journey with only two under-servants; we were all
mounted on the best horses in the stable, and reached Toledo without
loss of time, where we found Donna Theodora in a state to warrant our
hopes that she would not, at present, weigh anchor on her
outward-bound voyage; and, in fact, our judgment on her case, though
point blank in contradiction to that of an old physician who attended
her, proved by the event that we knew at least as much of the matter
as he did.
While the health of our venerable relative was improving from day to
day, less, perhaps, from the effect of the prescriptions than in
consequence of her dear nephew's presence, your worthy friend the
treasurer passed his time in the pleasantest manner possible, with
some young people whose acquaintance was admirably calculated to
ventilate the confined cash in his pocket. Sometimes they enticed me
to the tennis-court, and took me in for a game: on those occasions,
not being quite so steady a player as my master Don Abel, I lost much
oftener than I won. By degrees play became a passion with me; and if
the taste had been suffered to gain complete possession, it would
doubtless have laid me under the necessity of drawing bills of
accommodation on the family bank; but happily love stepped in, and
saved the credit both of the bank and of my principles. One day,
passing along near the church of the Epiphany, I espied, through a
lattice with the drapery drawn up, a young girl who might well be
called a thing divine, for nothing natural was ever seen so lovely.
I would lay on 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 honor 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 would 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 arbor 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 another: 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 forever 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 patchwork; but the time for reflection, as
well as for repentance, was 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 Illescas, 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. O! 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 Illescas 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, showing me a stewpan with a young
rabbit, as he said, cut up into pieces, There, continued he, is what
I mean to favor 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 laboring 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 flavor delicious, whether from the
force of hunger in communicating a candid mode of interpretation to
my palate, or from the natural effect of the ingredients compounded
by the cook. A joint of roast mutton was next served up. It was
remarkable that the carrier only paid his respects to this last
article; and I asked him why he had not taken his share of the other.
He answered, with a suppressed smile, that he was not fond of made
dishes. This reason, or rather the turn of countenance with which it
was alleged, seemed to imply more than was expressed. You have not
told me, said I, the real meaning of your not eating the fricassee;
do have the goodness to explain it at once. Since you are so curious
to be made acquainted with it, replied he, I must own that I have an
insuperable aversion to cramming my stomach with meats in masquerade,
since one evening at an inn on the road between Toledo and Cuença,
they served me up, instead of a wild rabbit, a hash of tame cat;
enough, of all conscience, ever after to set my intestines in battle
array against all minces, stews, and force-meats.
No sooner had the muleteer let me into this secret, than, in spite of
the hunger which raged within me, my appetite left me completely in
the lurch. I conceived, in all the horrors of extreme loathing, that
I had been eating a cat dressed up as the double of a rabbit; and the
fricassee had no longer any power over my senses, except by producing
a strong inclination to retch. My companion did not lessen my
tendency that way, by telling me that the innkeepers in Spain, as
well as the pastry-cooks, were very much in the habit of making that
substitution. The drift of the conversation was, as you may
perceive, very much in the nature of a lenitive to my stomach; so
much so, that I had no mind to meddle any more with the dish of
undefinables, nor even to make an attack upon the roast meat, for
fear the mutton should have performed its duty by deputy as well as
the rabbit. I jumped up from table, cursing the cookery, the cook,
and the whole establishment; then, throwing myself down upon the
sofa, I passed the night with less nausea than might reasonably have
been expected. The day following, with the dawn, after having paid
the reckoning with as princely an air as if we had been treated like
princes, away went I from Illescas, bearing my faculties so strongly
impregnated with fricassee, that I took every animal which crossed
the road, of whatever species or dimensions, for a cat.
We got to Madrid betimes, where I had no sooner settled with my
carrier, than I hired a ready-furnished lodging near the Sun-gate.
My eyes, though accustomed to the great world, were, nevertheless,
dazzled by the concourse of nobility which was ordinarily seen in the
quarter of the court. I admired the prodigious number of carriages,
and the countless list of gentlemen, pages, gentlemen's gentlemen,
and plain, downright footmen, in the train of the grandees. My
admiration exceeded all bounds on going to the king's levee, and
beholding the monarch in the midst of his court. The effect of the
scene was enchanting, and I said to myself, It is no wonder they
should say that one must see the court of Madrid, to form an adequate
idea of its magnificence: I am delighted to have directed my course
hither, and feel a sort of prescience within me that I shall not come
away without taking fortune by surprise. I caught nothing napping,
however, but my own prudence, in making some thriftless, expensive
acquaintance. My money oozed away in the rapid thaw of my propriety
and better judgment, so that it became a measure of expedient
degradation to throw away my transcendent merit on a pedagogue of
Salamanca, whom some family lawsuit or other concern had brought to
Madrid, where he was born, and where chance, more whimsical than
wise, thrust me within the horizon of his knowledge. I became his
right hand, his prime, principal agent, and dogged him at the heels
to the university when he returned thither.
My new employer went by the name of Don Ignacio de Ipigna. He
furnished himself with the handle of don, inasmuch as he had been
tutor to a nobleman of the first rank, who had recompensed his early
services with an annuity for life: he likewise derived a snug little
salary from his professorship in the university; and, in addition to
all this, laid the public under a yearly contribution of two or three
hundred pistoles for books of uninstructive morality, which he
protruded from the press periodically by weight and measure. The
manner in which he worked up the shreds and patches of his
composition deserves a notice somewhat more than cursory. The heavy
hours of the forenoon were spent in muzzing over Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin authors, and in writing down upon little squares of card every
pithy sentence or striking thought which occurred in the morning's
reading. According to the progress of this literary Pam in winning
tricks from the ancients, he employed me to score up his honors in
the form of an Apollo's wreath: these metaphysical garlands were
strung upon wire, and each garland made a pocket volume. What an
execrable hash of wholesome viands did we cook up! The commandments
set at loggerheads with an utter confusion of tables; Epicurean
conclusions grafted on stoical premises! Tully quoting Epictetus,
and Seneca supporting his antitheses on the authority of monkish
rhyme! Scarcely a month elapsed without our putting forth at least
two volumes, so that the press was kept continually groaning under
the weight of our transgressions. What seemed most extraordinary of
all was, that these literary larcenies were palmed upon the
purchasers for spick and span new wares, and if, by any strange and
improbable chance, a thick-headed critic should stumble with his
noddle smack against some palpable plagiarism, the author would plead
guilty to the indictment, and make a merit of serving up at
second-hand
What Gellius or Stobæus hashed before,
Though chewed by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er.
He was also a great commentator, and filled his notes chuck full of
so much erudition as to multiply whole pages of discussion upon what
homely common-sense would have consigned to the brief alternative of
a query:--
Disputes of Me or Te, or Aut or At,
To sound or sink in cano O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.
As almost every author, ethical and didactic, from Hesiod down to
himself, took his turn to dangle on some one or other of our
manuscript garlands, it was impossible for me not to suck in somewhat
of sage nurture from so copious a stream of philosophy: it would be
rank ingratitude to shift off my obligation. My handwriting also
became strictly and decidedly legible, by dint of continual
transcription; my estate was more that of a pupil than of a servant,
and my morals were not neglected, while my mind was polished, and my
faculties raised above their former level. Scipio, he used to say,
when he chanced to hear of any serving lad with more cunning than
honesty in his dealings, beware, my good boy, how you take after the
evil example of that graceless villain. "The honor of a servant is
his fidelity; his highest virtues are submission and obedience. Be
studious of thy master's interests; be diligent in his affairs, and
faithful to the trust which he reposeth in thee. Thy time and thy
labor belong unto him. Defraud him not thereof, for he payeth thee
for them." To sum up all, Don Ignacio lost no opportunity of leading
me on in the path of virtue, and his prudent counsels sank so deep
into my heart, as to keep under anything like even the slightest wish
of playing him a rogue's trick during the fifteen months which I
spent in his service.
I have already mentioned that Doctor de Ipigna was a native of
Madrid. He had a relation there, by name Catalina, waiting-maid to
the lady who officiated as nurse to the heir-apparent. This abigail,
the same through whose intervention I got Signor de Santillane
released from the tower of Segovia, intent on rendering a service to
Don Ignacio, prevailed with her mistress to petition the Duke of
Lerma for some preferment. The minister named him for the
archdeaconry of Grenada, which, as a conquered country, is in the
king's gift. We repaired immediately to Madrid on receiving the
intelligence, as the doctor wished to thank his patronesses before he
took possession of his benefice. I had more than one opportunity of
seeing Catalina, and conversing with her. The cheerful turn of my
temper and a certain easy air of good company were altogether to her
taste; for my part, I found her so much to my liking, that I could
not help saying yes to the little advances of partiality which she
made in my favor: in short, we got to feel very kindly towards each
other. You must not write a comment with your nails, my dear
Beatrice, on this episode in the romance of my amours, because I was
firmly persuaded of your inconstancy, and you will allow that heresy,
though impious, being also blind, my penance may reasonably be
remitted on sincere conversion.
In the mean time, Doctor Ignacio was making ready to set out for
Grenada. His relation and myself, out of our wits at the impending
separation, had recourse to an expedient which rescued us from its
horrors: I shammed illness, complained of my head, complained of my
chest, and made a characteristic wry face for every pain and ache in
the catalogue of human infirmities. My master called in a physician,
who told me with a grave face, after putting his questions in the
usual course, that my complaint was of a much more serious nature
than it might appear to unprofessional observation, and that,
according to all present likelihood, I should keep my chamber a long
time. The doctor, impatient to take possession of his preferment,
did not think it quite so well to delay his departure, but chose
rather to hire another boy; he therefore contented himself with
handing me over to the care of a nurse, with whom he left a sum of
money to bury me if I should die, or to remunerate me for my services
if I should recover.
As soon as I knew Don Ignacio to be safe on the road for Grenada, I
was cured of all my maladies. I got up, made my final bow to the
physician who had evinced so thorough a knowledge of my case, and
fairly turned my nurse out of doors, who made her retreat good with
baggage and ammunition to the amount of more than half the sum for
which she ought to have accounted with me. While I was enacting the
sick man, Catalina was playing another part about the person of her
mistress, Donna Anna de Guévra, into whose conception having, by dint
of many a wordy process, inserted the notion that I was the man of
all others ready cut and dry for an intrigue, she induced her to
choose me for one of her agents. The royal and most catholic nurse,
whose genius for great undertakings was either produced or
exasperated by the love of great possessions, having occasion for
suitable ministers, received me among her hangers-on, and lost no
opportunity of ascertaining how far I was for her purpose. She
confided some commissions to my care, which, vanity apart, called for
no little address, and what they called for was ready at hand:
accordingly she gave me all possible credit for the diligent
execution of my office, while my discontent swelled high against 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 behavior 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 common-place 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 favor
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 favor to assure these
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 Cosclina.
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
carried 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.
_CHAPTER 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 a 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 Alphonso; 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 neighborhood 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 falling 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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar 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 you 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 Cæsar 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 league with my secretary,
they advised me to go to Madrid and offer my congratulations to the
new king, as one of his former acquaintances, with the merit of
having rendered him even such services as the great are apt to reward
more willingly than some which are performed with cleaner hands. For
my part, said Don Alphonso, I have no doubt but they will be
liberally acknowledged: Philip the Fourth is bound in honor to pay
the Prince of Spain's debts. I consider the affair just in the same
light as you do, said Don Cæsar; and Santillane's visit to court will
doubtless prove the occasion of his arriving at the very first
employments.
In good truth, my noble friends, exclaimed I, you do not consider
what you are talking about. It should seem, were one to give ear to
the soothing words of you both, as if I had nothing to do but to show
my face at Madrid, and receive the key of office, or some foreign
government, for my pains; but you are egregiously mistaken. I am, on
the contrary, well persuaded that the king would pass me over as a
stranger, were I to throw myself in his way. I will make the
experiment if you wish it, merely for the sake of undeceiving you.
The lords of Leyva took me at my word, so that I could not help
promising them to set out without loss of time for Madrid. No sooner
did my secretary perceive my mind fully made up to the prosecution of
this journey, than his ecstasies were wound up to the highest pitch:
he was satisfied within himself, that if I did but present my
excellent person before the new monarch, he would immediately single
me out from the crowd of political candidates, and weigh me down
under a load of dignities and emoluments. On the strength of these
conjectures, puffing himself out and amusing his fancy with the most
splendid extravagances of device, he raised me up to the first
offices of the state, and pushed forward his own preferment in the
path of my exaltation.
I therefore made my arrangements for returning to court, without the
most distant intention of again sacrificing at the shrine of fortune,
but merely to convince Don Cæsar and his son of their error in
imagining that I was at all likely to ingratiate myself with the
sovereign. It is true that there was some little lurking vanity at
the bottom of all my philosophy, sprouting up in the shape of a
desire to ascertain whether my royal master would throw away a
thought on me now in the spring time of his new and blushing honors.
Led out of that course solely by that tempter, curiosity, without a
dream of hope, or any practical contrivance for turning the new reign
to my own individual advantage, I set out for Madrid with Scipio,
consigning the management of my household to Beatrice, who was well
skilled in all the arts of domestic economy.
_CHAPTER II._
_GIL BLAS ARRIVES IN MADRID, AND MAKES HIS APPEARANCE AT COURT; THE
KING IS BLESSED WITH A BETTER MEMORY THAN MOST OF HIS COURTIERS, AND
RECOMMENDS HIM TO THE NOTICE OF HIS PRIME MINISTER. CONSEQUENCES OF
THAT RECOMMENDATION._
We got to Madrid in less than eight days, Don Alphonso having given
us two of his best horses, that we might lose no time on the road.
We alighted at a ready-furnished lodging, where I had lived formerly,
kept by Vincent Ferrero, my old landlord, who was uncommonly glad to
see me again.
As this man prided himself on being in the secret of whatever was
going forward either in court or city, I asked him after the best
news. There is plenty of it, whether best or worst, answered he.
Since the death of Philip the Third, the friends and partisans of the
cardinal Duke of Lerma have been moving heaven and earth to support
his eminence on the pinnacle of ministerial authority; but their
efforts have been ineffectual: the Count of Olivarez has carried the
day, in spite of all their industry. It is alleged that Spain will
be no loser by the exchange, and that the present premier is
possessed of a genius so extensive, a mind so capacious, that he
would be competent to wield the machine of universal government. New
brooms, they say, sweep clean! But, at all events, you may take this
for certain, that the public is fully impressed with a very favorable
opinion of his capacity; we shall see by and by whether the Duke of
Lerma's situation is well or ill filled up. Ferrero, having got his
tongue into the right train for wagging, gave me all the particulars
of all the changes which had taken place at court since the Count of
Olivarez had taken his seat at the helm of the state vessel.
Two days after my arrival at Madrid I repaired to the royal palace,
after my dinner, and threw myself in the king's way as he was
crossing the lobby to his closet; but his notice was not at all
attracted by my appearance. Next day, I returned to the same place,
but with no better success. On the third day he looked me full in
the face as he passed by; but the stare was perfectly vacant, as far
as my interest or my vanity was concerned. This being the case, I
resolved in my own mind what was proper to be done. You see, said I
to Scipio, who accompanied me, that the king is grown out of my
recollection; or if his memory is not become more frail with the
elevation of his circumstances, he has some private reasons for not
choosing to renew the acquaintance. I think we cannot do better than
make our way back as fast as possible for Valencia. Let us not be in
too great a hurry for that, sir, answered my secretary; you know
better than myself, having served a long apprenticeship, that there
is no getting on at court without patience and perseverance. Be
indefatigable in exhibiting your person to the prince's regards: by
dint of forcing yourself on his observation, you will oblige him to
ask himself the question who this assiduous frequenter of his haunts
can possibly be, when memory must come to his aid, and trace the
features of his cheapener in the purchase of the lovely Catalina's
good graces.
That Scipio might have nothing to reproach me with, I so far lent
myself to his wishes as to continue the same proceeding for the space
of three weeks; when at length it happened one day that the monarch,
noticing the frequency of my appearance, sent for me into his
presence. I went into the closet, not without some perturbation of
mind at the idea of a private interview with my sovereign. Who are
you? said he; your features are not altogether strange to me. Where
have I seen you? Please your majesty, answered I, trembling, I had
the honor of escorting you one night with the Count of Lemos to the
house of ... Ah! I recollect it perfectly, cried the prince, as if a
sudden light had broke in upon him; you were the Duke of Lerma's
secretary; and if I am not mistaken, your name is Santillane. I have
not forgotten that on the occasion alluded to you served me with a
most commendable zeal, but received a left-handed recompense for your
exertions. Did you not get into prison at the conclusion of the
adventure? Yes, please your majesty, replied I; my confinement in
the tower of Segovia lasted six months; but your goodness was
exercised in procuring my release. That, replied he, does not cancel
my debt to my faithful servant Santillane: it is not enough to have
restored him to liberty; for I ought to make him ample amends for the
evils which he has suffered on the score of his alacrity in my
concerns.
Just as the prince was uttering these words, the Count of Olivarez
came into the closet. The nerves of favorites are shaken by every
breath, their irritability excited by every trifle: he was as much
astonished as any favorite need be at the sight of a stranger in that
place, and the king redoubled his wondering propensities by the
following recommendation: Count, I consign this young man to your
care; employ him, and let me find that you provide for his
advancement. The minister affected to receive this order with the
most gracious acquiescence, but looked me over from head to foot,
with a glance from the corner of his eye, and was on tenter-hooks to
find out who had been so strangely saddled upon him. Go, my friend,
added the sovereign, addressing himself to me, and waving his hand
for me to withdraw; the count will not fail to avail himself of your
services in a manner the most conducive to the interests of my
government, and the establishment of your own fortunes.
I immediately went out of the closet, and made the best of my way to
the son of Cosclina, who, being overrun with impatience to inquire
what the king had been talking about, fumbled at his fingers' ends,
and was all over in an agitation. His first question was, whether we
were to return to Valencia or become a part of the court. You shall
form your own conclusions, answered I, at the same time delighting
him with an account, word for word, of the little conversation I had
just held with the monarch. My dear master, said Scipio, at once, in
the excess of his joy, will you take me for your almanac-maker
another time? You must acknowledge that we were not in the wrong:
the lords of Leyva and myself have our eye-teeth about us! a journey
to Madrid was the only measure to be adopted in such a case. Already
I anticipate your appointment to an eminent post: you will turn out
to be, some time or other, a Calderona to the Count of Olivarez.
That is by no means the object of my ambition, observed I in return;
the employment is placed on too rugged an eminence to excite any
longings in my mind. I could wish for a good situation, where there
could be no inducement to do what might go against my conscience, and
where the favors of my prince are not likely to be bartered away for
filthy lucre. Having experienced my own unfitness for the possession
of patronage, I cannot be sufficiently on my guard against the
inroads of avarice and ambition. Never think about that, sir,
replied my secretary; the minister will give you some handsome
appointment, which you may fill without any impeachment of your
integrity or independence.
Induced more by Scipio's importunity than my own curiosity, I
repaired the following day, before sunrise, to the residence of the
Count d'Olivarez, having been informed that every morning, whether in
summer or winter, he gave audience by candlelight to all comers. I
ensconced myself modestly in a corner of the saloon, and from my
lurking-place took especial notice of the count when he made his
appearance, for I had marked his person but cursorily in the king's
closet. He was above the middle stature, and might pass for fat in a
country where it is a rarity to see any but lean subjects. His
shoulders were so high, as to look exactly as if he was humpbacked;
but appearances were slanderous; for his blade-bones, though
inelegant, were a pair; his head, which was large enough to be
capacious, dropped down upon his chest by the unwieldiness of its own
weight; his hair was black and unconscious of a curl, his face
lengthened, his complexion olive-colored, his mouth retiring inwards,
with the sharp-pointed, turn-up chin of a pantaloon.
This whole arrangement of structure and symmetry did not exactly make
up the complete model of a nobleman according to the ideas of ancient
art; nevertheless, as I believed him to be in a temper of mind
favorable to the gratification of my wishes, I looked at his defects
with an indulgent eye, and found him a man very much to my
satisfaction. One of the best points about him was, that he received
the public at large with the utmost affability and complacency,
holding out his hand for petitions with as much good humor as if he
were the person to be obliged; and this was a sufficient set-off
against anything untoward in the expression of his countenance. In
the mean time, when, in my turn, I came forward to pay my respects
and make myself known to him, he darted at me a glance of rude
dislike and frightful menace; then, turning his back, without
condescending to give me audience, retired into his closet. Then it
was that the ugliness of this nobleman's features appeared in all the
extravagance of caricature, so that I made the best of my way out of
the saloon, thunderstruck at so savage a reception, and quite at a
loss how to conjecture what might be the consequence.
Having got back to Scipio, who was waiting for me at the door, Can
you guess at all, said I, what sort of a greeting mine was? No,
answered he, not as to the minute particulars; but with respect to
the substance, easily enough: the minister, ready upon all occasions
to fall in with the fancies of his royal master, must of course have
made you a handsome offer of an ostensible and lucrative situation.
That is all you know about the matter, replied I, and then went on to
acquaint him circumstantially with all that passed. He listened to
me with serious attention, and then said, The count could not have
recollected your person; or rather, he must have been deceived by a
fortuitous resemblance between you and some impertinent suitor. I
would advise you to try another interview; I will lay a wager he will
look on you more kindly. I adopted my secretary's suggestion, and
stood for the second time in the presence of the minister; but he,
behaving to me still worse than at first, puckered up his features
the moment my unlucky countenance came within his ken, just as if it
was connected with some lodged hate and certain loathing, which of
force swayed him to offend, himself being offended; after this
significant demonstration, he turned away his glaring eyeballs, and
withdrew without uttering a word.
I was stung to the quick by so hostile a treatment, and in a humor to
set out immediately on my return to Valencia; but to that project
Scipio uniformly opposed his steady objections, not knowing how for
the life of him to part with those flattering hopes which fancy had
engendered in his brain. Do you not see plainly, said I, that the
count wishes to drive me away from court? The monarch has testified
in his presence some sort of favorable intention towards me, and is
not that enough to draw down upon me the thorough hatred of the
monarch's favorite? Let us drive before the wind, my good comrade;
let us make up our minds to put quietly into port, and leave the open
sea and the honors of the flag in the possession of an enemy with
whom we are too feeble to contend. Sir, answered he, in high
resentment against the Count of Olivarez, I would not strike so
easily. I would go and complain to the king of the contempt in which
his minister held his recommendation. Bad advice, indeed, my friend,
said I; to take so imprudent a step as that would soon bring bitter
repentance in the train of its consequences. I do not even know
whether it is safe for me to remain any longer in this town.
At this hint, my secretary communed a little with his own thoughts;
and, considering that in point of fact we had to do with a man who
kept the key of the tower of Segovia in his pocket, my fears became
naturalized in his breast. He no longer opposed my earnest desire of
leaving Madrid, and I determined to take my measures accordingly on
the very next day.
_CHAPTER III._
_THE PROJECT OF RETIREMENT IS PREVENTED, AND JOSEPH NAVARRO BROUGHT
UPON THE STAGE AGAIN BY AN ACT OF SIGNAL SERVICE._
On my way home to my lodgings I met Joseph Navarro, whom the reader
will recollect as on the establishment of Don Balthasar de Zuniga,
and one of my old friends. I made my bow first at a distance, then
went up to him, and asked whether he knew me again, and if he would
still be so good as to speak to a wretch who had repaid his
friendship with ingratitude. You acknowledge then, said he, that you
have not behaved very handsomely by me? Yes, answered I; and you are
fully justified in laying on your reproaches thick and threefold: I
deserve them all, unless, indeed, my guilt may be thought to have
been atoned by the remorse of conscience attendant on it. Since you
have repented of your misconduct, replied Navarro, embracing me, I
ought no longer to hold it in remembrance. For my part, I knew not
how to hug Joseph close enough in my arms; and we both of us resumed
our original kind feelings towards one another.
He had heard of my imprisonment and the derangement of my affairs;
but of what followed he was totally ignorant. I informed him of it;
relating, word for word, my conversation with the king, without
suppressing the minister's late ungracious reception of me, any more
than my present purpose of retiring into my favorite obscurity.
Beware of removing from the scene of action, said he, since the
sovereign has shown a disposition to befriend you: there are always
uses to be made of such a circumstance. Between ourselves, the Count
of Olivarez has something rather unaccountable in his character: he
is a very good sort of nobleman, but rather whimsical withal:
sometimes, as on the present occasion, he acts in a most offensive
manner, and none but himself can furnish a clew to disentangle the
intricate thread of his motives and their results. But however this
may be, or whatever reasons might have swayed him to give you so
scurvy a reception, keep your footing here, and do not budge; he will
not be able to hinder you from thriving under the royal shelter and
protection: take my word for that! I will just give a hint upon the
subject this evening to Signor Don Balthasar de Zuniga, my master; he
is uncle to the Count of Olivarez, and shares with him in the toils
and cares of office. Navarro, having given me this assurance,
inquired where I lived, and then we parted.
It was not long before we met again; for he came to call on me the
very next day. Signor de Santillane, said he, you are not without a
protector; my master will lend you his powerful support: on the
strength of the good character which I have given your lordship, he
has promised to speak to his nephew, the Count of Olivarez, in your
behalf; and I doubt not but he will effectually prepossess him in
your favor. My friend Navarro, not meaning to serve me by halves,
introduced me two days afterwards to Don Balthazar, who said, with a
gracious air, Signor de Santillane, your friend Joseph has pronounced
your panegyric in terms which have won me over completely to your
interest. I made a low obeisance to Signor de Zuniga, and answered,
that to the latest period of my life I should entertain the most
lively sense of my obligation to Navarro for having secured to me the
protection of a minister who was considered, and that for the best
reasons possible, as the presiding genius, the greater luminary, or,
as it were, the eye and mind of the ministerial council. Don
Balthasar, at this unexpected stroke of flattery, clapped me on the
shoulder with an approving chuckle, and returned my compliment by a
more significant intimation: You may call on the Count of Olivarez
again to-morrow, and then you will have more reason to be pleased
with him.
For the third time, therefore, did I make my appearance before the
prime minister, who, picking me out from among the mob of suitors,
cast upon me a look conveying with it a simper of welcome, from which
I ventured to draw a good omen. This is all as it should be, said I
to myself; the uncle has brought the nephew to his proper bearings.
I no longer anticipated any other than a favorable reception, and my
confidence was fully justified. The count, after having given
audience to the promiscuous crowd, took me with him into his closet,
and said with a familiar address, My friend Santillane, you must
excuse the little disquietude I have occasioned you merely for my own
amusement; it was done in sport, though it was death to you, for the
sole purpose of practising on your discretion, and observing to what
measures your disgust and disappointment would incite you. Doubtless
you must have concluded that your services were displeasing to me;
but on the contrary, my good fellow, I must confess frankly, that, as
far as appears at present, you are perfectly to my mind. Though the
king, my master, had not enjoined me to take charge of your fortunes,
I should have done so of my own free choice. Besides, my uncle, Don
Balthasar de Zuniga, to whom I can refuse nothing, has requested me
to consider you as a man for whom he particularly interests himself;
that alone would be enough to fix my confidence in you, and make me
most sincerely your friend.
This outset of my career produced so lively an impression on my
feelings, that they became unintelligibly tumultuous. I threw myself
at the minister's feet, who insisted on my rising immediately, and
then went on to the following effect: Return hither to-day after
dinner, and ask for my steward; he will acquaint you with the orders
which I shall have given him. With these words his excellency broke
up the conference to hear mass, according to his constant custom
every day after giving audience; he then attended the king's levee.
_CHAPTER IV._
_GIL BLAS INGRATIATES HIMSELF WITH THE COUNT OF OLIVAREZ._
I did not fail returning after dinner to the prime minister's house,
and asking for his steward, whose name was Don Raymond Caporis. No
sooner had I made myself known, than paying his civilities to me in
the most respectful manner, Sir, said he, follow me, if you please: I
am to do myself the honor of showing you the way to the apartment
which is ordered for you in this family. Having spoken thus, he led
me up a narrow staircase to a gallery communicating with five or six
rooms, which composed the second story belonging to one wing of the
house, and were furnished neatly, but without ostentation. You
behold, resumed he, the lodging assigned you by his lordship, where
you will always have a table of six persons, kept at his expense.
You will be waited on by his own servants; and there will always be a
carriage at your command. But that is not all: his excellency
insisted on it, in the most pointed manner, that you should be
treated in every respect with the same attention as if you belonged
to the house of Guzman.
What the devil is the meaning of all this? said I within myself.
What construction ought I to put upon all these honors? Is there not
some humorous prank at the bottom of it? and must it not be more in
the way of diversion than anything else, that the minister is
flattering me up with so imposing an establishment? While I was
ruminating in this uncertainty, fluctuating between hope and fear, a
page came to let me know that the count was asking for me. I waited
instantly on his lordship, who was quite alone in his closet. Well!
Santillane, said he, are you satisfied with your rooms, and with my
orders to Don Raymond? Your excellency's liberality, answered I,
seems out of all proportion with its object; so that I receive it
with fear and trembling. Why so? replied he. Can I be too lavish of
distinction to a man whom the king has committed to my care, and for
whose interests he especially commanded me to provide? No: that is
impossible; and I do no more than my duty in placing you on a footing
of respectability and consequence. No longer, therefore, let what I
do for you be a subject of surprise; but rely on it that splendor in
the eye of the world, and the solid advantages of accumulating
wealth, are equally within your grasp, if you do but attach yourself
as faithfully to me as you did to the Duke of Lerma.
But now that we are on the subject of that nobleman, continued he, it
is said that you lived on terms of personal intimacy with him. I
have a strong curiosity to learn the circumstances which led to your
first acquaintance, as well as in what department you acted under
him. Do not disguise or gloss over the slightest particular, for I
shall not be satisfied without a full, true, and circumstantial
recital. Then it was that I recollected in what an embarrassing
predicament I stood with the Duke of Lerma on a similar occasion, and
by what line of conduct I extricated myself: that same course I
adopted once again with the happiest success; whereby the reader is
to understand that throughout my narrative I softened down the
passages likely to give umbrage to my patron, and glanced with a
superficial delicacy over transactions which would have reflected but
little lustre on my own character. I likewise manifested a
considerate tenderness for the Duke of Lerma; though, by giving that
fallen favorite no quarter, I should better have consulted the taste
of him whom I wished to please. As for Don Rodrigo de Calderona,
there I laid about me with the religious fury of a bishop in a
battle. I brought together, and displayed in the most glaring
colors, all the anecdotes I had been able to pick up respecting his
corrupt practices and underhand dealing in the sale of promotions,
military, ecclesiastical, and civil.
What you have told me about Calderona, cried the minister with
eagerness, exactly squares with certain memorials which have been
presented to me, containing the heads of charges still more seriously
affecting his character. He will very soon be put upon his trial,
and if you have any wish to glut your revenge by his ruin, I am of
opinion that the object of your desire is near at hand. I am far
from thirsting after his blood, said I, though, had it depended on
him, mine might have been shed in the tower of Segovia, where he was
the occasion of my taking lodgings for a pretty long term. What!
inquired his excellency, was it Don Rodrigo who procured you that
sudden journey? This is a part of the story of which I was not aware
before. Don Balthasar, to whom Navarro gave a summary of your
adventures, told me, indeed, that the late king gave orders for your
commitment, as a mark of his indignation against you for having led
the Prince of Spain astray, and taken him to a house of suspicious
character in the night: but that is all I know of the matter, and
cannot, for the life of me, conjecture what part Calderona could
possibly have had to play in that tragicomedy. A principal part,
whether on the stage or in real life, answered I; that of a jealous
lover, taking vengeance for an injury sustained in the tenderest
point. At the same time I related minutely all the facts with which
the reader is already acquainted, and touched his risible
propensities, difficult as they were of access, so exactly in the
right place, that he could not help wagging his under-hung jaw in a
paroxysm of humor-stricken ecstasy, and laughing till he cried again.
Catalina's double cast in the drama delighted him exceedingly; her
sometimes playing the niece and sometimes personating the
granddaughter seemed to tickle his fancy more than anything; nor was
he altogether inattentive to the appearance which the Duke of Lerma
made in this undignified farce of state.
When I had finished my story, the count gave me leave to depart, with
an assurance that on the next day he would not fail to make trial of
my talents for business. I ran immediately to the family hotel of
Zuniga, to thank Don Balthasar for his good offices, and to acquaint
my friend Joseph with the favorable dispositions of the prime
minister, and my brilliant prospects in consequence.
_CHAPTER V._
_THE PRIVATE CONVERSATION OF GIL BLAS WITH NAVARRO, AND HIS FIRST
EMPLOYMENT IN THE SERVICE OF THE COUNT D'OLIVAREZ._
As soon as I got to the ear of Joseph, I told him, with much
trepidation of spirits, what a world of topics I had to deposit in
his private ear. He took me where we might be alone, when I asked
him, after having communicated a key to the whole transaction up to
the present time, what he thought of the business as it stood. I
think, answered he, that you are in a fair way to make an enormous
fortune. Everything turns out according to your wishes: you have
made yourself acceptable to the prime minister; and what must be
taken for something in the account, I can render you the same service
as my uncle Melchior de la Ronda, when you attached yourself to the
archiepiscopal establishment of Grenada. He spared you the trouble
of finding out the weak side of that prelate and his principal
officers, by discovering their different characters to you; and it is
my purpose, after his example, to bring you perfectly acquainted with
the count, his lady countess, and their only daughter, Donna Maria de
Guzman.
The minister's parts are quick, his judgment penetrating, and his
talents altogether calculated for the formation of extensive
projects. He affects the credit of universal genius, on the strength
of a showy smattering in general science; so that there is no
subject, in his own opinion, too difficult to be decided on his mere
authority. He sets himself up for a practical lawyer, a complete
general, and a politician of thorough-paced sagacity. Add to all
this, that he is so obstinately wedded to his own opinions, as
unchangeably to persevere in the path of his own chalking out, to the
absolute contempt of better advice, for fear of seeming to be
influenced by any good sense or intelligence but what he would be
thought to engross in the resources of his own mind. Between
ourselves, this blot in his character may produce strange
consequences, which it may be well for the monarchy should indulgent
heaven for the defect of human means avert! As for his talents in
council, he shines in debate by the force of natural eloquence, and
would write as well as he speaks if he did not injudiciously affect a
certain dignity of style, which degenerates into affectation,
quaintness, and obscurity. His modes of thinking are peculiar to
himself; he is capricious in conduct and visionary in design. Here
you have the picture of his mind, the light and shade of his
intellectual merits: the qualities of his heart and disposition
remain to be delineated. He is generous and warm in his friendships.
It is said that he is revengeful; but would he be a Spaniard if he
were otherwise? In addition to this, he has been accused of
ingratitude, for having driven the Duke of Uzeda and Friar Lewis
Aliaga into banishment, though he owed them, according to common
report, obligations of the most binding nature; and yet even this
must not be looked into so narrowly under his circumstances: there
are few breasts capacious enough to afford houseroom for two such
opposite inmates as political ambition and gratitude.
Donna Agnes de Zuniga é Velasco, Countess of Olivarez, continued
Joseph, is a lady to whom it is impossible to impute more than one
fault, but that is a huge one; for it consists in making a market,
and a market the most exorbitant in its terms, of her natural
influence over the mind of her husband. As for Donna Maria de
Guzman, who beyond all dispute is at this moment the very first match
in Spain, she is a lady of first-rate accomplishments, and absolutely
idolized by her father. Regulate your conduct upon these hints: make
your court with art and plausibility to these two ladies, and let it
appear as if you were more devoted to the Count of Olivarez than ever
you were to the Duke of Lerma before your forced excursion to
Segovia; you will become a leading and powerful member of the
administration.
I should advise you, moreover, added he, to see my master, Don
Balthasar, from time to time; for though you have no longer any
occasion for his interest to push you forward, it will not be amiss
to waste a little incense upon him. You stand very high in his good
opinion; preserve your footing there, and cultivate his friendship;
it may stand you in some stead on any emergency. I could not help
observing, that as the uncle and nephew were in a certain sort
partners in the government of the state, there might possibly be some
little symptom of jealousy between brothers near the throne. On the
contrary, answered he, they are united by the most confidential ties.
Had it not been for Don Balthasar, the Count of Olivarez might
probably never have been prime minister; for you are to know, that
after Philip the Third had paid the debt of nature, all the adherents
and partisans belonging to the house of Sandoval made a great stir,
some in favor of the cardinal, and others on his son's behalf; but my
master, a greater adept in court intrigue than any of them, and the
count, who is nearly as great an adept as himself, disconcerted all
their measures, and took their own so judiciously for the purpose of
stepping into the vacant place, that their rivals had no chance
against them. The Count of Olivarez, being appointed prime minister,
divided the duties with his uncle, Don Balthasar; leaving foreign
affairs to him, and taking the home department to himself: the
consequence is, that the bonds of family friendship are drawn closer
between these two noblemen than if political influence had no share
in their mutual interests: they are perfectly independent in their
respective lines of business, and live together on terms of good
understanding which no intrigue can possibly affect or alter.
Such was the substance of my conversation with Joseph, and the
advantage to be derived from it was my own to make the most of: at
all events, it was my duty to thank Signor de Zuniga for all the
influence he had the goodness to exert in my favor. He assured me
with infinite good-breeding that he should avail himself of every
opportunity as it arose to promote my wishes, and that he was very
glad his nephew had behaved so as to meet my ideas, because he meant
to refresh his memory in my behalf, being determined, as he was
pleased to say, to place it beyond all manner of doubt how far he
himself participated in all my views, and to make it evident that,
instead of one fast friend, I had two. In terms like these did Don
Balthasar, through mere friendship for Navarro, take the moulding of
my fortunes on himself.
On that same evening did I leave my paltry lodging to take up my
abode at the prime minister's, where I sat down to supper with Scipio
in my own suit of apartments. There were we both waited on by the
servants belonging to the household, who, as they stood behind our
chairs, while we were affecting the pomp and circumstance of
political elevation, were more likely than not to be laughing in
their sleeves at the pantomime they had been ordered by their manager
to play in our presence. When they had taken away and left us to
ourselves, my secretary, being no longer under restraint, gave vent
to a thousand wild imaginations which his sprightly temper and
inventive hopes engendered in his fancy. On my part, though by no
means cold or insensible to the brilliant prospects which were
opening on my view, I did not as yet yield in the least degree to the
weakness of being thrust aside from the right line of my philosophy
by temporal allurements. So much otherwise, that on going to bed I
fell into a sound sleep, without being haunted in my dreams by those
phantoms of flattering delusion which might have gained admittance
with no severe question from a corruptible door-keeper. The
ambitious Scipio, on the contrary, tossed and tumbled all night in
the agitation of restless contrivance. Whenever he dozed a little
imp took possession of his brain, with a pen behind its ear, working
out by all the rules of arithmetic the bulky sum total of his
daughter Seraphina's marriage portion.
No sooner had I got my clothes on the next morning, than a message
came from his lordship. I flew like lightning at the summons, when
his excellency said, Now then, Santillane, suppose you give us a
specimen of your talents for business. You say that the Duke of
Lerma used to give you state papers to bring into official form; and
I have one, by way of experiment, on which you shall try your skill.
The subject you will easily comprehend: it turns upon an exposition
of public affairs, such as to throw an artificial light on the first
appearance of the new ministry, and to prejudice the public in its
favor. I have already whispered it about by my emissaries, that
every department of the state was completely disorganized, that the
talents which preceded us were no talents at all; and the object at
present is to impress both court and city, by a formal declaration,
with the idea that our aid is absolutely necessary to save the
monarchy itself from sinking. On this theme you may expatiate till
the populace become lockjawed with astonishment, and the sober part
of the public are gravely argued out of all prepossession in favor of
the discarded party. By way of contrast, you will talk of the
_dignus vindice nodus_, taking care to translate it into Spanish; and
boast of the measures adopted, under the new order of things, to
secure the permanent glory of the king's reign, to give perpetual
prosperity to his dominions, and to confer perfect, unchangeable
happiness on his good people.
His lordship, having given out the general subject of my thesis, left
with me a paper containing the heads of charges, whether just or
unjust, against the late administration; and I remember perfectly
well that there were ten articles, whose lightest word, even of the
lightest article, would harrow up the soul of a true Spaniard, and
make his knotted and combined locks to part. That the current of my
fancy might experience no interruption, he shut me into a little
closet near his own, where the spirit of poetry might possess me in
all its freedom and independence. My best faculties were called
forth to compose a statement of affairs commensurate with my own
concern in the sweeping of the new brooms. My first object was to
lay open the nakedness and abandonment of the kingdom: the finances
in a state of bankruptcy, the civil list and immediate resources of
the crown pawned fifty times over, the navy unpaid, dismantled, and
in mutiny. All this hideous delineation was referred for its justice
and accuracy to the wrongheadedness and stupidity of government at
the close of the last reign, and the doctrine most strongly enforced,
that unexampled wisdom and patriotism only could ward off the fatal
consequences. In short, the monarchy could only be sustained on the
shoulders of our political sufficiency and reforming prudence. The
ex-ministry were so cruelly belabored, that the Duke of Lerma's ruin,
according to the terms of my syllogism, was the salvation of Spain.
To own the truth, though my professions were in the spirit of
Christian charity towards that nobleman, I was not sorry to give him
a sly rub in the exercise of my function. O man! man! what a
compound of candor-breathing satire and splenetic impartiality art
thou!
Towards the conclusion, having finished my frightful portraiture of
overhanging evils, I endeavored to allay the storm my art had raised,
by making futurity as bright as the past had been gloomy. The Count
of Olivarez was brought in at the close, like the tutelary deity of
an ancient commonwealth in the crisis of its fate. I promised more
than paganism ever feigned, or chivalry fancied in the wildest of its
crusading projects. In a word, I so exactly executed what the new
minister meant, that he seemed not to know his own hints again, when
drawn out in my emphatic and appropriate language. Santillane, said
he, do you know that this is more like the composition one might
expect from a secretary of state, than like that of a private
secretary? I can no longer be surprised that the Duke of Lerma was
fond of calling your talents into action. Your style is concise, and
by no means inelegant; but it creeps rather too much in the level
paths of nature. At the same time, pointing out the passages which
did not hit his fancy, he corrected them; and I gathered from the
touches he threw in, that Navarro was right in saying he affected
sententious wit, but mistook for it quaint and stale conceits.
Nevertheless, though he preferred the stately, or rather the
grotesque, in writing, he suffered two thirds of my performance to
stand without alteration, and, by way of proving how entirely he was
satisfied, sent me three hundred pistoles by Don Raymond after dinner.
_CHAPTER VI._
_THE APPLICATION OF THE THREE HUNDRED PISTOLES, AND SCIPIO'S
COMMISSION CONNECTED WITH THEM. SUCCESS OF THE STATE PAPER MENTIONED
IN THE LAST CHAPTER._
This handsome present of the minister furnished Scipio with a new
subject of congratulation, by reason of our second appearance at
court. You may remark, said he, that fortune is preparing a load of
aggrandizement to lay on your lordship's shoulders. Are you still
sorry for having turned your back on solitude? May the Count of
Olivarez live forever! He is a very different sort of a master from
his predecessor. The Duke of Lerma, with all your devotion to his
service, left you to live upon suction for months, without a pistole
to bless yourself with; and the count has already made you a present
which you could have had no reason to expect but after a course of
long service.
I should very much like, added he, that the lords of Leyva should be
witnesses of your great success, or at least that they should be
informed of it. It is high time, indeed, answered I, and I meant to
speak with you on that subject. They must doubtless be impatient to
hear of my proceedings; but I waited till my fate was fixed, and till
I could decide for certain whether I should stay at court or not.
Now that I am sure of my destination, you have only to set out for
Valencia whenever you please, and to acquaint those noblemen with my
present situation, which I consider as their doing, since it is
evident that but for them, I should never have resolved on my journey
to Madrid. My dear master, cried the son of Bohemian accident, what
joy shall I communicate by relating what has happened to you! Why am
I not already at the gates of Valencia? But I shall be there
forthwith. Don Alphonso's two horses are ready in the stable. I
shall take one of my lord's livery servants with me. Besides that
company is pleasant on the road, you know very well the effect of
official parade in making impression on the natives of a provincial
town.
I could not help laughing at my secretary's foolish vanity; and yet,
with vanity perhaps more than equal to his own, I left him to do as
he pleased. Go about your business, said I, and make the best of
your way back; for I have another commission to give you. I mean to
send you to the Asturias with some money for my mother. Through
neglect I have suffered the time to elapse when I promised to remit
her a hundred pistoles, and pledged you to make the payment in
person. Such engagements ought to be held sacred by a son; and I
reproach myself with inaccuracy in the observance of mine. Sir,
answered Scipio, within six weeks I shall bring you an account of
both your commissions; having opened my budget to the lords of Leyva,
looked in at your country-house, and taken a peep at the town of
Oviedo, the recollection of which I cannot admit into my mind,
without turning over three fourths of the inhabitants, and one half
of the remaining quarter, to the corrective discipline of that
infernal executioner, who is supposed to be kept on foot for the
purpose of castigating sinners. I then counted down one hundred
pistoles to that same son of a wandering mother for my honored
parent's annuity, and another hundred for himself; meaning that he
should perform his long journey without grumbling on my account by
the way.
Some days after his departure his lordship sent our memorial to
press; and it was no sooner published than it became the topic of
conversation in every circle throughout Madrid. The people,
enamoured of novelty, took up this well-written statement of their
own wretchedness with fond partiality; the derangement and exhaustion
of the finances, painted with a mixture of truth and poetry, excited
a strong feeling of popular indignation against the Duke of Lerma,
and if these paper bullets of the brain, cast in the political armory
of a rival, failed to carry victory with them in the opinions of all
mankind, they were, at all events, hailed with triumph by the most
clamorous of our own partisans. As for the magnificent promises
which the Count of Olivarez threw in, and among others that of
keeping the machine of state in motion by a system of economy,
without adding to the public burdens, they were caught at with
avidity by the citizens at large, and considered as pledges of an
enlightened and patriotic policy, so that the whole city resounded
with the acclamation of panegyric and congratulation on the opening
of new prospects.
The minister, delighted to have gained his end so easily, which in
that publication had only been to draw popularity upon himself, was
now determined to seize the substance as well as catch at the shadow,
by an act of unquestionable credit with the subject, and high utility
to the king's service. For that purpose he had recourse to the
Emperor Galba's contrivance, consisting in a forced regurgitation of
ill-gotten spoils from individuals who had made large fortunes,
hell--and their own consciences knew best how--in the superintendence
of the royal expenditure. When he had squeezed these sponges till
they were dry again, and had filled the king's coffers with the
drainings, he undertook to render the reform permanent by abolishing
all pensions, not excepting his own, and curtailing the gratuities
too frequently bestowed on favorites out of the prince's privy purse.
To succeed in this design, which he could not carry into effect
without changing the face of the government, he charged me with the
composition of a new state paper, furnishing the substance and the
form from his own idea. He then advised me to raise my style as much
as possible above the level of my ordinary simplicity, and to give an
air of more eloquence to my phraseology. A hint is sufficient, my
lord, said I; your excellency wishes to unite sublimity with
illumination, and it shall be so. I shut myself up in the same
closet where I had already worked so successfully, and sat down
stiffly to my task, first calling to my aid the lofty and clear
perceptions, the noble and sonorous expressions of my old instructor,
the Archbishop of Grenada.
I began by laying it down as a first maxim of political philosophy,
that the vital functions, the respiration as it were of all monarchy,
depended on the strict administration of the finances; that in our
particular case, that duty became imperiously urgent, irresistibly
impressing on our consciences; and that the revenue should be
considered as the nerves and sinews of Spain, to hold her rivals in
check and keep her enemies in awe. After this general declamation, I
pointed out to the sovereign--for to him the memorial was
addressed--that by cutting down all pensions and perquisites
dependent on the ordinary income, he would not thereby deprive
himself of that truly royal pleasure, a princely munificence towards
those of his subjects who had established a fair claim to his favors;
because, without drawing upon his treasury, he had the means of
distributing more acceptable rewards; that for one branch of service,
there were viceroyalties, lieutenancies, orders of merit, and all
sorts of military commissions; for another, high judicial situations
with salaries annexed, civil offices of magistracy with sounding
titles to give them consequence; and though last, not least, all the
temporal possessions of the church to animate the piety of its
spiritual pastors.
This memorial, which was much longer than the first, occupied me
nearly three days; but as luck would have it, my performance was
exactly to my master's mind, who, finding it written with sententious
cogency, and bristled up with metaphors in the declamatory parts,
complimented me in the highest terms. That is vastly well expressed
indeed, said he, laying his finger on a passage here and there, and
picking out all the most inflated sentences he could find: that
language bears the stamp of fine composition, and might pass for the
production of a classic. Courage, my friend! I foresee that your
services will be worth their weight in gold. And yet,
notwithstanding the applauses he lavished on my classical
composition, a few of his own heightening touches, he thought, would
make it read still better. He put a good deal of his own stuff into
it, and the medley was manufactured into a piece of eloquence which
was considered as unanswerable by the king and all the court. The
whole city joined in opinion with the higher orders, deriving the
most flattering hopes of the future from these grand promises, and
concluding that the monarchy must recover its pristine splendor
during the ministry of so illustrious a character. His excellency,
finding that my sermon on economy was fraught with practical
inferences of utility to him, was kind enough to wish that I should
profit by the exercise of my own talents. In conformity therefore
with his new system of patronage, he gave me an annuity of five
hundred crowns on the commandery of Castile; and the acceptance of it
was so much the more palatable, as no dirty work had been done for
it, but it was honestly though cheaply earned.
_CHAPTER VII._
_GIL BLAS MEETS WITH HIS FRIEND FABRICIO ONCE MORE; THE ACCIDENT,
PLACE, AND CIRCUMSTANCES DESCRIBED, WITH THE PARTICULARS OF THEIR
CONVERSATION TOGETHER._
Nothing gave his lordship greater pleasure than to hear the general
decision of Madrid on the conduct of his administration. Not a day
passed but he inquired what they were saying of him in the political
world. He kept spies in pay, to bring him an exact account of what
was going on in the city. They particularized the most trivial
discourses which they overheard; and their orders being to suppress
nothing, his self-love was grazed now and then, for the people have a
way of bolting out home truths, without any nice calculation where
they may glance.
Finding that the count loved political small talk, I made it my
business to frequent places of public resort after dinner, and to
chime in with the conversation of genteel people whenever opportunity
offered. Should the measures of government happen to be canvassed
among them, I pricked up my ears, and greedily took in their
discourse; if any thing worth repeating was said, his excellency was
sure to hear of it. It can scarcely be necessary to hint, that I
never carried home any thing which was not likely to pay for the
porterage.
One day, returning from one of these little conversational parties,
my road lay in front of a hospital. It occurred to me to go in. I
walked through two or three wards filled with diseased patients, and
examined their beds to see that they were properly taken care of.
Among these unhappy wretches, whom I could not look at without the
most painful feelings, I observed one whose features struck me: it
surely could be no other than Fabricio, my countryman and chum! To
look at him more closely, I drew near his bedside, and finding,
beyond a possibility of doubt, that it was the poet Nunez, I stopped
to look at him for a few seconds without saying a word. He also
fixed his regards on me. At length breaking silence, Do not my eyes
deceive me? said I. Is it indeed Fabricio, and here? It is indeed,
answered he, coldly, and you need not wonder at it. Since we parted,
I have been working indefatigably at the trade of an author: I have
written novels, plays, and works of genius in every department. My
brain is fairly spun out, and here I am.
I could not help laughing at such a sketch of literary biography, and
still more at the serious air of the accompanying action. What!
cried I, has your muse brought you to this pass? Has she played you
such a jade's trick as this? Even as you witness, answered he; this
establishment is a sort of half-pay receptacle for invalids on the
muster-roll of disabled wit. You have acted discreetly, my good
friend, to lay yourself out for promotion in a different line. But
they tell me, you are no longer a courtier, and that your prospects
in political life were all blasted; nay, they went so far as to
affirm, that you were committed to close custody by the king's order.
They told you no more than the truth, replied I; the delightful
vision of political eminence wherein you left me last, soon shifted
the scene of my incoherent dreams to a prison and complete
destitution. But for all that, my friend, here you behold me again
in a better plight than ever. That is quite out of the question,
said Nunez: your deportment is discreet and decent; you have not that
supercilious and devil-take-the-hindmost sort of aspect which good
keep communicates to the human face. The reverses of this checkered
life, replied I, have brought me down to the level of the more modest
virtues; I have taken a lesson in the school of adversity, to enjoy
the possession of a good stud without riding the great horse.
Tell me then candidly, cried Fabricio, raising his head upon his hand
with his elbow upon the pillow, what your present occupation can
possibly be. A steward perhaps to some nobleman out at elbows, or
man of business to some rich widow! Something better than either the
one or the other, rejoined I; but excuse me from saying more at
present: another time your curiosity shall be satisfied. It is
enough at present to assure you that my means are equal to my
inclination, and that you may command independence through me; but
then you must submit to an embargo on your wit, and a non-intercourse
act between you and the faculty of writing, whether in verse or
prose. Can you make this sacrifice to my friendship? I have already
made it to the powers above, said he, in my last critical sickness.
A Dominican made me forswear poetry, as an amusement bordering on
criminality, but at all events beside the turnpike-road of good
sense. I wish you joy, my dear Nunez, replied I; but beware of a
revoke. There is not the least danger on that head, rejoined he: the
Muses and I have agreed on terms of separation: just as you came in
at that door, I was conning over a farewell ode. Good Master
Fabricio, said I, with a wise swagging to and fro of my head, it is a
doubtful question whether your vow of abjuration ought to pass
current with the Dominican and myself: you seem over head and ears in
love with those virgins incarnate. No, no, contended he peevishly, I
have cut the connection asunder. Nay, more, I have quarrelled with
their keepers, the public. The readers of these days do not deserve
an author of more genius than themselves: I should be sorry to write
down to their comprehension. You are not to suppose that this is the
language of disgust; it is my sincere and well-weighed opinion.
Applause and hisses are just the same to me. It is a toss up who
fails and who succeeds: the wit of to-day is the blockhead of
to-morrow. What cursed fools our dramatists must be, to care for
anything but their poundage when their plays happen to be received!
It is all very well for a few nights! But only fancy a revival at
the end of twenty years, and what a figure they will cut then! The
audiences of the present day turn up their noses at the stock pieces
of the last age, and it is a question whether their taste will fare
better with their more critical descendants. If that conjecture be
probable, the inventors of clap-traps now will be the butt of
cat-calls hereafter. It is just the same with novel writers, and all
other manufacturers of unnecessary literature; they strut and fret
for an hour, and then are no more seen or heard of. The glories of
successful authorship are the mere vapors of a murky atmosphere,
meteors of a marsh, foul coruscations of a dunghill, cathedral tapers
to put out the galaxy, blue flames of coarse paper held over a candle.
Though these caricatures of rival renown were the mere creations of
jealousy in the poet of the Asturias, it was not my business to
correct his ill temper. I am delighted, said I, that wit and you
have had so serious a quarrel, and that the diarrhœa of your
inventive faculties has been cured by an astringent. You may depend
on it, I will put you in the way of a good livelihood, without
drawing deep upon your intellectual credit. So much the better,
cried he; wit smells like carrion in my nostrils, or rather like a
pungent and deleterious perfume; fragrant to the sense, but corrosive
to the vitals. I heartily wish, my dear Fabricio, resumed I, that
you may always keep in that mind. Only wash your hands completely of
poetry, and, you may depend on it, I will enable you to keep your
head above water without picking or stealing. In the mean while,
added I, slipping a purse of sixty pistoles into his hand, accept
this as a slight instance of my regard.
O friend like the friends in days of yore, cried the son of barber
Nunez, out of his wits with joy and gratitude, it was heaven itself
which sent you into this hospital, whence your goodness is now
discharging me! Before we parted, I gave him my address, and invited
him to come and see me as soon as his health would permit. He opened
his eyes as an oyster does its shell, when I told him that I lodged
under the minister's roof. O illustrious Gil Blas! said he, great as
Pompey and fortunate as Sylla, whose lot it is to be hand in glove
with the dictators of modern times! I rejoice most disinterestedly
in your good fortune, because it is so very evident what a noble use
you make of it.
_CHAPTER VIII._
_GIL BLAS GETS FORWARD PROGRESSIVELY IN HIS MASTER'S AFFECTIONS.
SCIPIO'S RETURN TO MADRID, AND ACCOUNT OF HIS JOURNEY._
The Count of Olivarez, whom I shall henceforward call my lord duke,
because the king was pleased to confer that dignity on him about this
time, was infested with a weakness which I did not suffer to pass
without taking toll; it was a furious desire of being beloved. The
moment he fancied that any one really liked him, his heart was caught
in a trap. This was not lost upon my keen sense of character. It
was not enough to do precisely as he ordered; I superadded a zeal in
the execution which made him mine. I laid myself out to his liking
in every thing, and provided beforehand for his most eccentric wishes.
By conduct like this, which almost always answers, I became by
degrees my master's favorite; and he, on the other hand, as if he had
got round to my blind side also, wormed himself into my affections by
giving me his own. So forward did I get into his good graces, as to
halve his confidence with Signor Carnero, his principal secretary.
Carnero had played my game, and that so successfully as to be
intrusted with the greater mysteries. We two, therefore, were the
keepers of the prime minister's conscience, and held the keys of all
his secrets; with this difference, that Carnero was consulted on
state affairs, myself about his private concerns, dividing the
business into two separate departments; and we were each of us
equally pleased with our own. We lived together without jealousy,
and certainly without attachment. I had every reason to be satisfied
with my quarters, where continual intercourse gave me an opportunity
of prying into the duke's inmost soul, which was a masked battery to
all mankind beside, but plain as a pikestaff to me, when he no longer
questioned the sincerity of my attachment to him.
Santillane, said he one day, you were witness to the Duke of Lerma's
possession of an authority more like that of an absolute monarch than
a favorite minister; and yet I am still happier than he was at the
very summit of his good fortune. He had two formidable enemies in
his own son, the Duke of Uzeda, and in the confessor of Philip the
Third: but there is no one now about the king who has credit enough
to stand in my way, or even, as I am aware, the slightest inclination
to do me mischief.
It is true, continued he, that on my accession to the ministry, it
was my first care to remove all hangers-on from about the prince but
those of my own family or connections. By means of viceroyalties or
embassies I got rid of all the nobility who, by their personal merit,
could have interfered with me in the good graces of the sovereign,
whom I mean to engross entirely to myself; so that I may say at the
present moment, no statesman of the time holds me in check by the
ascendency of his personal influence. You see, Gil Blas, I open my
mind to you. As I have reason to think that you are mine, heart and
soul, I have chosen to put you in possession of everything. You are
a clever youth, with reflection, penetration, and discretion; in
short, you are just the very creature to acquit yourself of all
possible little offices in all possible directions; you are also a
young fellow of very promising parts, and must, in the nature of
things, be in my interests.
There was no standing the attack which these flattering
representations were calculated to make upon the weakly-defended
fortress of my philosophy. Unauthorized whims of avarice and
ambition mounted suddenly into my head, and brought forward certain
sentiments of political speculation which were supposed to have been
in abeyance. I gave the minister an assurance that I should fulfil
his intentions to the utmost of my power, and held myself in
readiness to execute, without examination or interference, all the
orders it might be his pleasure to give me.
While I was thus disposed to take fortune in her affable fit, Scipio
returned from his peregrination. I have no long story for you, said
he. The lords of Leyva were delighted at your reception from the
king, and at the manner in which the Count of Olivarez and you came
to understand one another.
My friend, said I, you would have delighted them still more, had you
been able to tell them on what a footing I am now with my lord. My
advances since your departure have been prodigious. Happy man be his
dole, my dear master, answered he: my mind forebodes that we shall
cut a figure.
Let us change the subject, said I, and talk of Oviedo. You have been
in the Asturias. How did you leave my mother? Ah, sir! replied he,
with an undertaker's decency of countenance, I have a melancholy tale
to tell you from that quarter. O heaven! exclaimed I, my mother then
is dead! Six months since, said my secretary, did the good lady pay
the debt of nature, and your uncle, Signor Gil Perez, about the same
period.
My mother's death preyed upon my susceptible nature, though in my
childhood I had not received from her those little fondling
indications of maternal love so necessary to amalgamate with the more
serious convictions of filial duty. The good canon, too, came in for
his share in bringing me up according to the rules of godliness and
honesty. My serious grief was not lasting; but I never lost sight of
a certain tender recollection, whenever the idea of my dear relations
shot across my mind.
_CHAPTER IX._
_HOW MY LORD DUKE MARRIED HIS ONLY DAUGHTER, AND TO WHOM; WITH THE
BITTER CONSEQUENCES OF THAT MARRIAGE._
Very shortly after the son of Cosclina's return, my lord duke fell
into a brown study; and it lasted a complete week. I conceived, of
course, that he was brooding over some great measure of government;
but family concerns were the object of his musings. Gil Blas, said
he one day after dinner, you may perceive that my mind is a good deal
distracted. Yes, my good friend, I am pondering over an affair of
the utmost consequence to my feelings. You shall know all about it.
My daughter, Donna Maria, pursued he, is marriageable, and of course
beset with suitors. The Count de Niéblés, eldest son of the Duke de
Medina Sidonia, head of the Guzman family, and Don Lewis de Haro,
eldest son of the Marquis de Carpio and my eldest sister, are the two
most likely competitors. The latter, in particular, is superior in
point of merit to all his rivals, so that the whole court has fixed
on him for my son-in-law. Nevertheless, without entering into
private motives for treating him, as well as the Count de Niéblés,
with a refusal, my present views are fixed upon Don Ramires Nunez de
Guzman, Marquis of Toral, head of the Guzmans d'Abrados, another
branch of the family. To that nobleman and his progeny, by my
daughter, I mean to leave all my property, and to entail on them the
title of Count d'Olivarez, with the additional dignity of grandee; so
that my grandchildren and their descendants, issue of the Abrados and
Olivarez branch, will be considered as taking precedence in the house
of Guzman.
Tell me now, Santillane, added he, do you not like my project?
Excuse me, my lord, pleaded I, with a shrug; the design is worthy of
the genius which gave birth to it: my only fear is, lest the Duke of
Medina Sidonia should think fit to be out of humor at it. Let him
take it as he list, resumed the minister; I give myself very little
concern about that. His branch is no favorite with me: they have
choused that of Abrados out of their precedence and many of their
privileges. I shall be far less affected by his ill humors than by
the disappointment of my sister, the Marchioness de Carpio, when she
sees my daughter slip through her son's fingers. But let that be as
it may, I am determined to please myself, and Don Ramires shall be
the man; it is a settled point.
My lord duke, having announced this firm resolve, did not carry it
into effect without giving a new proof of his singular policy. He
presented a memorial to the king, entreating him and the queen, in
concert, to do him the honor of taking the choice of a husband for
his daughter on themselves, at the same time acquainting them with
the pretensions of the suitors, and professing to abide by their
election; but he took care, when naming the Marquis de Toral, to
evince clearly whither his own wishes pointed. The king, therefore,
with a blind deference for his minister, answered thus:--
"I think that Don Ramires Nunez deserves Donna Maria; but determine
for yourself. The match of your own choosing will be most agreeable
to me.
(Signed) THE KING."
The minister made a point of showing this answer everywhere; and
affecting to consider it as a royal mandate, hastened his daughter's
marriage with the Marquis de Toral; a death-blow to the hopes of the
Marchioness de Carpio and the rest of the Guzmans who had been
speculating on an alliance with Donna Maria. These rival players of
a losing game, not being able to break off the match, put the best
face they could upon it, and made the fashionable world to resound
with their costly celebrations of the event. A superficial observer
might have fancied that the whole family was delighted with the
arrangement; but the pouters and ill-wishers were soon revenged most
cruelly at my lord duke's expense. Donna Maria was brought to bed of
a daughter at the end of ten months; the infant was still-born, and
the mother died a few days afterwards.
What a loss for a father who had no eyes, as one may say, but for his
daughter, and in her loss felt the miscarriage of his design to quash
the right of precedence in the branch of Medina Sidonia! Stung to
the quick by his misfortune, he shut himself up for several days, and
was visible to no one but myself; a sincere sympathizer, from the
recollection of my own experience in his sorrow. The occasion drew
forth fresh tears to Antonia's memory. The death of the Marchioness
de Toral, under circumstances so similar, tore open a wound
imperfectly skinned over, and so exasperated my affliction, that the
minister, though he had enough to do with his own sufferings, could
not help taking notice of mine. It seemed unaccountable how exactly
his feelings were echoed. Gil Blas, said he one day, when my tears
seemed to feed upon indulgence, my greatest consolation consists in
having a bosom friend so much alive to all my distresses. Ah! my
lord, answered I, giving him the full credit of my amiable
tenderness, I must be ungrateful and degenerate in my nature if I did
not lament as for myself. Can I be aware that you mourn over a
daughter of accomplished merit, whom you loved so tenderly, without
shedding tears of fellow-feeling? No, my lord, I am too much
naturalized to you on the side of obligation not to take a permanent
interest in all your pleasures and disappointments.
_CHAPTER X._
_GIL BLAS MEETS WITH THE POET NUNEZ BY ACCIDENT, AND LEARNS THAT HE
HAS WRITTEN A TRAGEDY, WHICH IS ON THE POINT OF BEING BROUGHT OUT AT
THE THEATRE ROYAL. THE ILL FORTUNE OF THE PIECE, AND THE GOOD
FORTUNE OF ITS AUTHOR._
The minister began to pick up his crumbs, and myself consequently to
get into feather again, when one evening I went out alone in the
carriage to take an airing. On the road I met the poet of the
Asturias, who had been lost to my knowledge ever since his discharge
from the hospital. He was very decently dressed. I called him up,
gave him a seat in my carriage, and we drove together to St. Jerome's
meadow.
Master Nunez, said I, it is lucky for me to have met you
accidentally; for otherwise I should not have had the pleasure... No
severe speeches, Santillane, interrupted he with considerable
eagerness: I must own frankly that I did not mean to keep up your
acquaintance, and I will tell you the reason. You promised me a good
situation provided I abjured poetry; but I have found a very
excellent one on condition of keeping my talents in constant play. I
accepted the latter alternative, as squaring best with my own humor.
A friend of mine got me an employment under Don Bertrand Gomez del
Ribero, treasurer of the king's galleys. This Don Bertrand, wanting
to have a wit in his pay, and finding my turn for poetical
composition very much in unison with his own sense of what is
excellent, has chosen me in preference to five or six authors who
offered themselves as candidates for the place of his private
secretary.
I am delighted at the news, my dear Fabricio, said I, for this Don
Bertrand must be very rich. Rich indeed! answered he; they say that
he does not know himself how much he is worth. However that may be,
my business under him is as follows: He prides himself on his turn
for gallantry, at the same time wishing to pass for a man of genius;
he therefore keeps up an epistolary intercourse of wit with several
ladies who have an infinite deal, and borrows my brain to indite such
letters as may amplify the opinion of his sprightliness and elegance.
I write to one for him in verse, to another in prose, and sometimes
carry the letters myself, to prove the agility of my heels as well as
the ingenuity of my head.
But you do not tell me, said I, what I most want to know. Are you
well paid for your epigrammatic cards of compliment? Yes, most
plentifully, answered he. Rich men are not always open-handed; and I
know some who are downright curmudgeons; but Don Bertrand has behaved
in the most handsome manner. Besides a salary of two hundred
pistoles, I receive some little occasional perquisites from him,
sufficient to set me above the world, and enable me to live on an
equal footing with some choice spirits of the literary circles, who
are willing, like myself, to set care at defiance. But then, resumed
I, has your treasurer critical skill enough to distinguish the
beauties of a performance from its blemishes? The least likely man
in the world, answered Nunez; a flippant-tongued smatterer, with a
miserable assortment of materials for judging. Yet he gives himself
out for chief justice and lord president of Apollo's tribunal. His
decisions are adventurous, if not always lucky; while his opinions
are maintained in so high a tone and with so bullying a challenge of
infallibility, that nine times out of ten the issue of an argument is
silence, though not conviction, on the part of the opponent, as a
measure of precaution against the gathering storm of foul language
and contemptuous sneers.
You may readily suppose, continued he, that I take especial care
never to contradict him, though it almost exceeds human patience to
forbear; for, to say nothing of the unpalatable phrases that might be
hailed down on my defenceless head, I should stand a very good chance
of being shoved by the shoulders out of doors. I therefore am
discreet enough to approve what he praises, and to condemn without
mitigation or appeal whatever he is pleased to find fault with. By
this easy compliance--for poets are compelled to acquire a knack of
knocking under to those by whom they live, not even excepting their
booksellers--I have gained the esteem and friendship of my patron.
He has employed me to write a tragedy on a plot of his own. I have
executed it under his inspection; and if the piece succeeds, a
percentage on the laud and honor must accrue to him.
I asked our poet what was the title of his tragedy. He informed me
that it was "The Count of Saldagna," and that it would come out in
two or three days. I told him that I wished it all possible success,
and thought so favorably of his genius as to entertain considerable
hopes. So do I, said he; but hope never tells a more flattering tale
than in the ear of a dramatic author. You might as well attempt to
fix the wind by nailing the weathercock as speculate on the reception
of a new piece with an audience.