IN WHICH ORIGINALS ARE SEEN OF WHOM COPIES ARE RIFE.
"Observe, in the first place, that troop of beggars which you see
already in the street. They are libertines, mostly of good birth, who,
like the monks, live on the principle of community of property; and
who pass their nights in debauch at their haunts, where they are at
all times well supplied with bread, meat, and wine. They are about to
separate, each to perform his part in the churches of this godly city;
and to-night, when reassembled, they will drink to the charitable fools
who piously contribute to their orgies. You cannot but admire these
scoundrels, who so well know the semblances which art adopts to inspire
pity: why, coquettes are less adept to elicit love.
"Look at those three rogues who are walking off together. He who,
leaning upon crutches, trembles as he moves, and seems to halt with
pain,--who, as he hobbles on, you would momentarily think must fall
upon his face,--despite his long white beard and wrinkled front, he is
a youthful scamp, so strong and swift, would head the hunted deer. The
one beside him, with that awful scald, is a graceful adolescent, whose
head is covered with a bladder skin which hides as beauteous curls as
ever adorned a courtly page. The third, who gyrates in a bowl, is a
comic rascal, that can bring such lamentable noises from his stomach
as to move the bowels of all ancient ladies, who even hasten from the
topmost floors to his relief.
"While these mummers, under the mask of poverty, prepare to cheat the
public into charity, I observe hosts of worthy artisans, who, Spaniards
though they be, are on the road to earn their bread by the sweat of
their careworn brows. On all sides you may behold men rising from their
beds, or dressing hastily, that they may begin anew their various parts
upon this busy stage. How many projects formed in the visionary night
are about to be carried into execution, or to vanish with the sober
light of morn! What schemes prompted by love, by interest, or ambition,
are about to be attempted!"
"What see I in the street?" interrupted Don Cleophas. "Who is that
woman loaded with saintly medals, who walks, preceded by a footman,
in such anxious haste? She has some pressing business in hand, beyond
a doubt." "Indeed she has," replied the Devil; "she is a venerable
matron, hurrying to a neighbouring house where her ministry is suddenly
required. She seeks a fair comedian who suffers for the fault of Eve,
and near whom are a brace of cavaliers in sore perplexity. One of these
is her spouse, and the other a noble friend, who is greatly interested
as to the result: for the labours of your actresses resemble those of
Alcmena; there being ever a Jupiter and an Amphitryon who share in
their production.
"Would not one swear now, to look on that mounted cavalier, carrying
a carbine in his hand, that he was a sportsman about to war with
the hares and partridges who besiege the neighbourhood of Madrid?
Nevertheless, it is no love of shooting which calls him forth so early:
he is after other game; and is bent towards a village, where he will
disguise himself as a peasant, that he may enter, without suspicion,
the farm where his mistress resides, under the vigilant eye of an
experienced mother.
"That young graduate, passing along with such enormous strides, is
going, according to his daily custom, to inquire after the health of an
aged canon, his uncle, whose prebendary he has in his eye. Do you see,
in that house opposite to us, a man putting on his cloak, evidently
preparing to go out? He is an honest and rich citizen, whom a matter
of grave interest has kept awake all night. He has an only daughter,
of marriageable years, and he is unable to make up his mind whether
he shall give her hand to a young attorney who solicits it, or to a
proud hidalgo who demands it; and he is therefore going to consult his
friends on the subject: in truth, he may well feel embarrassed. He is
justly alarmed lest, by resolving on the gentleman, he should have a
son-in-law who would despise him; and on the other hand he fears, that
if he decide for the attorney, he will introduce into his house a worm
which will consume all that it contains.
"Look at the neighbour of this anxious parent. You may perceive,
in that house so magnificently furnished, a man in a dressing-gown
of scarlet brocade, embroidered with flowers of gold: there is a
wit for you, who affects the lord in spite of his lowly origin. Ten
years ago, he had not twenty maravedis wherewith to bless himself;
and now, he boasts an annual revenue of ten thousand ducats. His
equipage is in the best taste; but he keeps it on the savings of his
table; whose frugality is such that he generally picks his chicken by
himself. Sometimes, however, his ostentation compels him to regale his
illustrious friends: to-day, for instance, he gives a dinner to some
councillors of state; and, in anticipation, he has just sent for a
pastry-cook, with whom he will haggle for a maravedi, before he agrees
with him on the bill of fare, which it will be his next care to display
to advantage." "You are describing a scaly villain, indeed!" cried
Zambullo. "Oh! as to that," replied Asmodeus, "all beggars whom fortune
suddenly enriches become either misers or spendthrifts: it is the rule."
"Tell me," said the Student, "who is that lovely woman at her toilet,
talking with that handsome cavalier?" "Ah! truly," exclaimed the
Cripple, "you have hit on a subject which well deserves your attention.
The lady is a German widow, who lives at Madrid on her dower, and who
visits in the best society; and the young man who is with her is the
Signor Don Antonio de Monsalva.
"This cavalier, although a member of one of the noblest families
in Spain, has pledged himself to the widow to espouse her; he has
even given her a conditional promise of forfeiture to the amount of
three thousand pistoles. He is, however, crossed in his love by his
relations, who threaten to confine him if he do not immediately break
off all connexion with the fair German, whom they look upon as an
adventurer. The gallant, mortified to find his friends all thus opposed
to his design, went yesterday evening to his mistress, who, perceiving
his uneasiness, asked him its cause. This, after some hesitation, he
told her, assuring her at the same time that whatever obstacles his
family might raise, nothing should shake his constancy. The widow
appeared delighted at his firmness, and they parted at midnight highly
satisfied with each other.
[Illustration: the cavalier visits the German widow]
"Monsalva has returned this morning, as you see, to pay his devoirs to
the lady, whom finding at her toilet, he used every effort to beguile
the time by new protestations of devotion. During the conversation, his
Saxon mistress was releasing her auburn curls from the papers which had
confined them during the night; and our cavalier, happening to take
up one of these, heedlessly unfolded it, and, to his great surprise,
observed therein his own hand-writing. 'What! madam,' said he, smiling,
'is this the use you make of these pledges of my affection?' 'Yes!
Monsalva,' replied the lady; 'you behold the value that I put upon
the promises of lovers who would marry me in opposition to their
friends; they make excellent _papillotes_.' When, indeed, the cavalier
discovered that it was his pledge of forfeiture which his mistress had
thus destroyed, he was filled with admiration at this unlooked-for
proof of disinterestedness, and he is now very properly vowing to her
for the thousandth time, eternal fidelity.
"Cast your eyes," continued the Devil, "upon that tall man who is
passing beneath us; he has a large common-place book under his arm,
an ink-bottle hanging at his girdle, and a guitar slung at his back."
"He is an odd-looking fellow indeed," cried the Student: "I would lay
my life he is an original." "It is beyond a doubt," replied the Demon,
"that he is a curious compound enough. There are such things as cynical
philosophers in Spain; and there goes one. He is walking towards the
Buen-Retiro, to reach a meadow in which there is a fountain, whose
refreshing waters form a brook that glides like a silver serpent
through the flowers. There will he pass the day, contemplating the
beauties of nature, tinkling his guitar, and noting the reflections
that the scene inspires in his common-place book. He carries in his
pockets his ordinary food, that is to say, a piece of bread and some
onions. Such is the sober life that he has led during ten years past;
and were some Aristippus to say to him, as was erst spoken to Diogenes:
'If thou knewest how to pay thy court to the great, thou wouldst not
eat onions;' this modern philosopher would reply: 'I could pay my court
to the great as well as thou, if I would abase one man so low, as to
make him cringe before another.'
"In truth, however, this philosopher formerly mixed greatly with the
nobility; he even owes his fortune to their patronage; but, compelled
to feel, as all must who move among persons more exalted than
themselves, that the friendship of these lordlings was to him but an
honourable species of servitude, he broke off all connection with them.
At the time I speak of he kept his carriage; this he subsequently put
down, on reflecting that, as he rolled along, the mud from his wheels
was splashed perhaps upon his betters. Distributing his wealth among
his indigent friends, he reserved for himself no more than would enable
him to live as moderately as he does; and he kept so much, only because
it appeared to him no less shameful for a philosopher to beg his bread
from the people than from the aristocracy.
"Pity the cavalier who follows this philosopher, and whom you see
accompanied by a dog. He can boast his descent from one of the most
ancient and noble houses of Castile. He has been rich; but he ruined
himself, like the Timon of Lucian, by feasting his friends every
day; and, particularly, by giving splendid fêtes on the births and
marriages of all the princes and princesses of Spain; in a word, on
every occasion for rejoicing that he could make or find. No sooner did
the discreet parasites who flocked round him see the ring slip over
his purse than they abandoned his house and himself; one friend alone
remains faithful to him now;--it is his dog."
[Illustration: the ruined cavalier and his dog]
"Tell me! Signor Asmodeus," cried Leandro Perez; "to whom belongs the
carriage stopping before that house?" "It is the property of a rich
contador, who comes here every morning to visit a frail beauty, whom
this ancient sinner of Moorish race protects, and whom he loves to
distraction. He learned last night that his female friend had been
unfaithful, and in the fury which this intelligence induced, he wrote
her a letter full of reproaches and threats. You would never guess what
part the lady took on this occasion: instead of having the impudence to
deny the fact, she sent to the treasurer this morning, owning that he
was justly angered at her conduct; that he ought henceforth to despise
her, since she had been capable of deceiving so gallant a lover; that
she acknowledged and detested her fault; and that, to punish herself,
she had already sacrificed those locks which he had so often admired;
in short, that she had resolved to consecrate, in a nunnery, the
remainder of her days to repentance.
"The old dotard was unable to withstand the well-feigned remorse of
his mistress, and has risen thus early to console her. He found her in
tears; and so well has she played her part that he has just assured
her of a full pardon for the past: nay, more, to compensate for the
sacrifice of her much-prized tresses, he is, at this moment, promising
to enable her to cut a figure in the world, by purchasing for her
a handsome country-house, which is just about to be sold, near the
Escurial."
"All the shops are opened, I perceive," said the Student; "and I
observe already a cavalier now entering a tavern." "That cavalier,"
replied Asmodeus, "is a youth of family, who is troubled with the
prevailing mania for writing nonsense, that he may pass as an author.
He is not absolutely without talent; he has even enough to enable him
to detect its want in the dramas which are at present produced on your
stage; but not so much as to qualify him to write a tolerable one
himself. He has gone into that house to order a grand repast: he gives
a dinner to-day to four comedians, whose good graces he would purchase
in favour of a wretched comedy of his concoction, which he is on the
point of presenting to their company. What will not money do?
"Apropos of authors," continued the Devil, "there now are two just
meeting in the street. Do you notice the mocking style of their
salutes? They despise each other thoroughly: and they are right. One
of them writes as easily as the poet Crispinus, whom Horace compares
to the bellows of a forge; and the other wastes a vast deal of time in
composing works as cold and insipid as a water ice."
"Who is the little man descending from his carriage at the door of
that church?" asked Zambullo. "He is a person worthy your remark,"
replied the Cripple. "It is not yet ten years since he abandoned the
office of a notary, in which he was senior clerk, to shut himself up
in the Carthusian monastery of Saragoza. At the end of a six-months
noviciate, however, he left the convent, and re-appeared in Madrid;
where those who had formerly known him were amazed to see him all at
once become one of the principal members of the Council of the Indies.
His sudden fortune is still the wonder of the town. Some say he has
sold himself to the Devil; others, that he is the beloved of some rich
dowager; and some, again, insist that he must have found a treasure."
"Well! you know all about it, of course," interrupted Don Cleophas. "I
should wonder if I did not," replied the Demon; "but I will unveil this
mystery for you.
[Illustration: the novice unearths the casket]
"During his aforesaid noviciate, it happened one day that our intended
monk, in digging a deep hole in his appointed garden, lighted on a
brazen coffer, which he opened, of course, and within which he found
a golden casket containing some thirty diamonds of the purest water.
Although the pious horticulturist knew little enough of precious
stones, he shrewdly suspected that whoever had placed them there was
wiser; so resolving on the course which, in one of the comedies of
Plautus, is adopted by Gripus, who abandons fishing when he has found
a treasure, he threw off his gown, returned to Madrid, and by the
assistance of a friendly jeweller, transmuted his diamonds into pieces
of gold, and his pieces of gold into an office which has procured for
him an exalted station in society."