I................................................................................................................................................................7

II ...............................................................................................................................................................9

III ............................................................................................................................................................11

IV...........................................................................................................................................................13

BOOK THE FIRST. ............................................................................................................................................14

CH. I. The birth and education of Gil Blas......................................................................................14

CH. II Gil Blas' alarm on his road to Pegnaflor; his adventures on his arrival in that town;

and the character of the men with whom he supped. ...........................................................................16

CH. III. The muleteer's temptation on the road; its consequences, and the situation of Gil

Blas between Scylla and Charybdis. .....................................................................................................19

CH. IV. Description of the subterraneous dwelling and its contents..............................................20

CH. V. The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their

pleasant conversation. ............................................................................................................................21

CH. VI. The attempt of Gil Blas to escape, and its success.............................................................25

CH. VII. Gil Blas, not being able to do what he likes, does what he can.......................................26

CH. VIII. Gil Blas goes out with the gang, and performs an exploit on the highway....................27

CH. IX. A more serious incident. ....................................................................................................28

CH. X. The lady's treatment from the robbers. The event of the great design, conceived by

Gil Blas..................................................................................................................................................29

CH. XI The history of Donna Mencia de Mosquera........................................................................31

CH. XII. A disagreeable interruption..............................................................................................34

CH. XIII. The lucky means by which Gil Blas escaped from prison, and his travels

afterwards. ..............................................................................................................................................36

CH. XIV. Donna Mencia's reception of him at Burgos. .................................................................37

CH. XV. Gil Blas dresses himself to more advantage, and receives a second present from the

lady. His equipage on setting out from Burgos. ...................................................................................39

CH. XVI. Showing that prosperity will slip through a man's fingers............................................41

CH. XVII. The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of the readyfurnished lodging. ........43

BOOK THE SECOND.......................................................................................................................................47

CH. I. Fabricio introduces Gil Blas to the Licentiate S�dillo, and procures him a reception.

The domestic economy of that clergyman. Picture of his housekeeper. ...............................................47

CH. II. The canon's illness; his treatment; the consequence; the legacy to Gil Blas......................49

CH. III. Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner. .......51

CH. IV. Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the

recovered ring........................................................................................................................................54

CH. V. Sequel of the foregoing adventure. Gil Blas retires from practice, and from the

neighbourhood of Valladolid.................................................................................................................58

CH. VI. His route from Valladolid, with a description of his fellowtraveller............................60

CH. VII. The journeyman barber's story........................................................................................62

CH. VIII. The meeting of Gil Blas and his companion with a man soaking crusts of bread at

a spring, and the particulars of their conversation................................................................................71

CH. IX. The meeting of Diego with his family; their circumstances in life; great rejoicings

on the occasion; the parting scene between him and Gil Blas. ............................................................73

BOOK THE THIRD...........................................................................................................................................75

CH. I. The arrival of Gil Blas at Madrid. His first place there. .......................................................75

CH. II. The astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that

robber's curious narrative. ......................................................................................................................78

CH. III Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the service of

a beau.....................................................................................................................................................81

CH. IV. Gil Blas gets into company with his fellows; they shew him a ready road to the

reputation of wit, and impose on him a singular oath. ..........................................................................84

CH. V. Gil Blas becomes the darling of the fair sex, and makes an interesting acquaintance......87

CH. VI. The Prince's company of comedians................................................................................90

CH. VII. History of Don Pompeyo de Castro..................................................................................92

CH. VIII. An accident, in consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another

place.......................................................................................................................................................95

CH. IX. A new service, after the death of Don Matthias de Silva.................................................98

CH. X. Much such another as the foregoing....................................................................................99

CH. XI. A theatrical life and an author's life ..................................................................................101

CH. XII. Gil Blas acquires a relish for the theatre, and takes a full swing of its pleasures,

but soon becomes disgusted. ................................................................................................................103

BOOK THE FOURTH.....................................................................................................................................104

CH. I. Gil Blas not being able to reconcile himself to the morals of the actresses, quits

Arsenia, and gets into a more reputable service.................................................................................104

CH. II. Aurora's reception of Gil Blas. Their conversation. ...........................................................107

CH. III. A great change at Don Vincent's. Aurora's strange resolution........................................109

CH. IV. The Fatal Marriage; a Novel. ..........................................................................................111

CH. V. The behaviour of Aurora de Guzman on her arrival at Salamanca. ..................................124

CH. VI. Aurora's devices to secure Don Lewis Pacheco's affections..........................................129

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco. .............133

CH. VIII. The Marchioness of Chaves: her character, and that of her company..........................138

CH. IX. An incident that parted Gil Blas and the Marchioness of Chaves. The subsequent

destination of the former. .....................................................................................................................140

CH. X. The history of Don Alphonso and the fair Seraphina........................................................142

CH. XI. The old hermit turns out an extraordinary genius, and Gil Blas finds himself

among his former acquaintance...........................................................................................................149

BOOK THE FIFTH..........................................................................................................................................151

CH. I. History of Don Raphael. ......................................................................................................151

CH. II Don Raphael's consultation with his company, and their adventures as they were

preparing to leave the wood. ................................................................................................................184

BOOK THE SIXTH. .........................................................................................................................................186

CH. I. The fate of Gil Blas and his Companions after they took leave of the Count de

Polan. One of Ambrose's notable contrivances set off by the manner of its execution. .....................186

CH. II The determination of Don Alphonso and Gil Blas after this adventure. ............................191

CH III. An unfortunate occurrence, which terminated to the high delight of Don Alphonso.

Gil Blas meets with an adventure which places him all at once in a very superior situation. ...........193

BOOK THE SEVENTH...................................................................................................................................194

CH. I. The tender attachment between Gil Blas and Dame Lorenza Sephora.............................194

CH. II. What happened to Gil Blas after his retreat from the castle of Leyva; shewing that

those who are crossed in love are not always the most miserable of mankind. ..................................198

CH. III. Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's favourite, and the channel of all his favours. .........201

CH. IV. The Archbishop is afflicted with a stroke of apoplexy. How Gil Blas gets into a

dilemma, and how he gets out. .............................................................................................................204

CH. V. The course which Gil Blas took after the archbishop had given him his dismissal.

His accidental meeting with the licentiate who was so deeply in his debt, and a picture of

gratitude in the person of a parson. ....................................................................................................206

CH. VI. Gil Blas goes to the play at Grenada. His surprise at seeing one of the actresses,

and what happened thereupon. .............................................................................................................208

CH. VII. Laura's Story. ...................................................................................................................211

CH. VIII. The reception of Gil Blas among the players at Grenada; and another old

acquaintance picked up in the green room.......................................................................................218

CH. IX. An extraordinary companion at supper; and an account of their conversation...............219

CH. X. The Marquis de Marialva gives a commission to Gil Blas. That faithful secretary

acquits himself of it as shall be related...............................................................................................221

CH. XI. A thunderbolt to Gil Blas. .................................................................................................222

CH. XII. Gil Blas takes lodgings in a readyfurnished house. He gets acquainted with

Captain Chinchilla. That officer's character and business at Madrid................................................224

CH. XIII. Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both

sides. They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be

anticipated. ..........................................................................................................................................228

CH. XIV. Fabricio finds a situation for Gil Blas in the establishment of Count Galiano, a

Sicilian nobleman................................................................................................................................232

CH. XV. The employment of Gil Blas in Don Galiano's household............................................234

CH. XVI. An accident happens to the Count de Galiano's monkey; his lordship's affliction

on that occasion. The illness of Gil Blas, and its consequences. ........................................................237

BOOK THE EIGHTH. ......................................................................................................................................240

CH. I. Gil Blas scrapes an acquaintance of some value, and finds wherewithal to make him

amends for the Count de Galiano's ingratitude. Don Valerio de Luna's story. ...................................240

CH. II. Gil Blas is introduced to the Duke of Lerma, who admits him among the number of

his secretaries, and requires a specimen of his talents, with which he is well satisfied.....................243

CH. III. All is not gold that glitters. Some uneasiness resulting from the discovery of that

principle in philosophy, and its practical application to existing circumstances. ..............................245

CH. IV. Gil Blas becomes a favourite with the Duke of Lerma, and the confidant of an

important secret. ...................................................................................................................................247

CH. V. The joys, the honours, and the miseries of a court life, in the person of Gil Blas. ...........248

CH. VI. Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a hint of his wretched condition. That minister

deals with him accordingly..................................................................................................................250

CH. VII. A good use made of the fifteen hundred ducats. A first introduction to the trade of

office, and an account of the profit accruing therefrom. .....................................................................252

CH. VIII. History of Don Roger de Rada. ......................................................................................253

CH. IX. Gil Blas makes a large fortune in a short time, and behaves like other wealthy

upstarts.................................................................................................................................................257

CH. X. The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A

commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an

intrigue.................................................................................................................................................260

CH. XI. The Prince of Spain's secret visit, and presents to Catalina. ............................................264

CH. XII. Catalina's real condition a worry and alarm to Gil Blas. His precautions for his

own ease and quiet. ..............................................................................................................................266

CH. XIII. Gil Blas goes on personating the great man. He hears news of his family: a touch

of nature on the occasion. A grand quarrel with Fabricio. ..................................................................267

BOOK THE NINTH.........................................................................................................................................269

CH. I. Scipio's scheme of marriage for Gil Blas. The match, a rich goldsmith's daughter.

Circumstances connected with this speculation. .................................................................................269

CH. II. In the progress of political vacancies, Gil Blas recollects that there is such a man in

the world as Don Alphonso de Leyva; and renders him a service from motives of vanity. ..............271

CH. III. Preparations for the marriage of Gil Blas. A spoke in the wheel of Hymen..................272

CH. IV. The treatment of Gil Blas in the tower of Segovia. The cause of his imprisonment. .....273

CH. V. His reflections before he went to sleep that night, and the noise that waked him...........275

CH. VI History of Don Gaston de Cogollos and Donna Helena de Galisteo. ...............................276

CH. VII. Scipio finds Gil Blas out in the tower of Segovia, and brings him a budget of news. ...283

CH. VIII. Scipio's first journey to Madrid: its object and success. Gil Blas falls sick. The

consequence of his illness. ...................................................................................................................285

CH. IX. Scipio's second journey to Madrid. Gil Blas is set at liberty on certain conditions.

Their departure from the tower of Segovia, and conversation on their journey. ................................286

CH. X. Their doings at Madrid. The rencounter of Gil Blas in the street, and its

consequences. .......................................................................................................................................288

BOOK THE TENTH........................................................................................................................................289

CH. I. Gil Blas sets out for the Asturias; and passes through Valladolid, where he goes to

see his old master, Doctor Sangrado. By accident, he comes across Signor Manuel Ordonnez,

governor of the hospital.....................................................................................................................289

CH. II. Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his

family. His father's death, and its consequences. ................................................................................294

CH. III. Gil Blas sets out for Valencia, and arrives at Lirias; description of his seat; the

particulars of his reception, and the characters of the inhabitants he found there. ............................298

CH. IV. A journey to Valencia, and a visit to the lords of Leyva. The conversation of the

gentlemen, and Seraphina's demeanour..............................................................................................300

CH. V. Gil Blas goes to the play, and sees a new tragedy. The success of the piece. The

public taste at Valencia........................................................................................................................303

CH. VI. Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity,

whose pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out

to be. .....................................................................................................................................................304

CH. VII. Gil Blas returns to his seat at Lirias. Scipio's agreeable intelligence, and a reform

in the domestic arrangements. .............................................................................................................308

CH. VIII. The loves of Gil Blas and the fair Antonia....................................................................309

CH. IX. Nuptials of Gil Blas with the fair Antonia; the style and manner of the ceremony;

the persons assisting thereat; and the festivities ensuing there upon. .................................................312

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the

commencement of Scipio's story.........................................................................................................314

CH. XI. Continuation of Scipio's story..........................................................................................325

CH. XII. Conclusion of Scipio's story. ...........................................................................................330

BOOK THE ELEVENTH. ................................................................................................................................339

CH. I. Containing the subject of the greatest joy that Gil Blas ever felt, followed up, as our

greatest pleasures too generally are, by the most melancholy event of his life. Great changes

at court, producing, among other important revolutions, the return of Santillane. ............................339

CH. 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. ...................................................................341

CH. III. The project of retirement is prevented, and Joseph Navarro brought upon the stage

again, by an act of signal service........................................................................................................344

CH. IV. Gil Blas ingratiates himself with the Count of Olivarez.................................................345

CH. V. The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the

service of the Count d'Olivarez. ...........................................................................................................346

CH. 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.........................................................349

CH. VII. Gil Blas meets with his friend Fabricio once more; the accident, place, and

circumstances described; with the particulars of their conversation together....................................351

CH. VIII. Gil Blas gets forward progressively in his master's affections. Scipio's return to

Madrid, and account of his journey....................................................................................................352

CH. IX.. How my lord duke married his only daughter, and to whom: with the bitter

consequences of that marriage. ............................................................................................................354

CH. 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. ...........................................................................................355

CH. XI. Santillane gives Scipio a situation: the latter sets out for New Spain.............................357

CH. XII. Don Alphonso de Leyva comes to Madrid; the motive of his journey a severe

affliction to Gil Blas, and a cause of rejoicing subsequent thereon. ...................................................358

CH. XIII. Gil Blas meets Don Gaston de Cogollos and Don Andrew de Tordesillas at the

drawingroom, and adjourns with them to a more convenient place. The story of Don Gaston

and Donna Helena de Galisteo concluded. Santillane renders some service to Tordesillas. ............360

CH. XIV. Santillane's visit to the poet Nunez, the company and conversation...........................363

BOOK THE TWELFTH. ..................................................................................................................................364

CH. I. Gil Blas sent to Toledo by the minister. The purpose of his journey and its success.......364

CH. II. Santillane makes his report to the minister, who commissions him to send for

Lucretia. The first appearance of that actress before the court. .........................................................367

CH. III. Lucretia's popularity; her appearance before the king; his passion, and its

consequences. .......................................................................................................................................368

CH. IV. Santillane in a new office.................................................................................................370

CH. V. The son of the Genoese is acknowledged by a legal instrument, and named Don

Henry Philip de Guzman. Santillane establishes his household, and arranges the course of his

studies.................................................................................................................................................371

CH. VI. Scipio's return from New Spain. Gil Blas places him about Don Henry's person.

That young nobleman's course of study. His career of honour, and his father's matrimonial

speculation on his behalf. A patent of nobility conferred on Gil Blas against his will....................372

CH. VII. An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio. Their last conversation

together, and a word to the wise from Nunez....................................................................................373

CH. IX. The revolution of Portugal, and disgrace of the prime minister. ....................................375

CH. X. A difficult, but successful, weaning from the world. The minister's employments in

his retreat. .............................................................................................................................................376

CH. XI. A change in his lordship for the worse. The marvellous cause, and melancholy

consequences, of his dejection. ............................................................................................................377

CH. XII. The proceedings at the Castle of Loeches after his lordship's death, and the course

which Santillane adopted.....................................................................................................................378

CH. XIII. The return of Gil Blas to his seat. His joy at finding his goddaughter Seraphina

marriageable; and his own second venture in the lottery of love......................................................379

CH. XIV. A double marriage, and the conclusion of the history..................................................381

CH. II Gil Blas' alarm on his road to Pegnaflor; his adventures on his arrival in that town; and the

CH. III. The muleteer's temptation on the road; its consequences, and the situation of Gil Blas

CH. V. The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their pleasant

CH. VIII. Gil Blas goes out with the gang, and performs an exploit on the highway.

CH. X. The lady's treatment from the robbers. The event of the great design, conceived by Gil

CH. XIII. The lucky means by which Gil Blas escaped from prison, and his travels afterwards.

CH. XV. Gil Blas dresses himself to more advantage, and receives a second present from the

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

CH. I. Fabricio introduces Gil Blas to the Licentiate S�dillo, and procures him a reception. The

CH. II. The canon's illness; his treatment; the consequence; the legacy to Gil Blas.

CH. III. Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner.

CH. IV. Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the

CH. V. Sequel of the foregoing adventure. Gil Blas retires from practice, and from the

CH. VIII. The meeting of Gil Blas and his companion with a man soaking crusts of bread at a

CH. IX. The meeting of Diego with his family; their circumstances in life; great rejoicings on the

CH. II. The astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that robber's

CH. III Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the service of a

CH. IV. Gil Blas gets into company with his fellows; they shew him a ready road to the reputation

CH. V. Gil Blas becomes the darling of the fair sex, and makes an interesting acquaintance.

CH. VIII. An accident, in consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another

CH. XII. Gil Blas acquires a relish for the theatre, and takes a full swing of its pleasures, but soon

CH. I. Gil Blas not being able to reconcile himself to the morals of the actresses, quits Arsenia,

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco.

CH. IX. An incident that parted Gil Blas and the Marchioness of Chaves. The subsequent

CH. XI. The old hermit turns out an extraordinary genius, and Gil Blas finds himself among his

CH. II Don Raphael's consultation with his company, and their adventures as they were preparing

CH. I. The fate of Gil Blas and his Companions after they took leave of the Count de Polan. One

CH III. An unfortunate occurrence, which terminated to the high delight of Don Alphonso. Gil

Blas meets with an adventure which places him all at once in a very superior situation.

CH. II. What happened to Gil Blas after his retreat from the castle of Leyva; shewing that those

CH. III. Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's favourite, and the channel of all his favours.

CH. IV. The Archbishop is afflicted with a stroke of apoplexy. How Gil Blas gets into a dilemma,

CH. V. The course which Gil Blas took after the archbishop had given him his dismissal. His

accidental meeting with the licentiate who was so deeply in his debt, and a picture of gratitude in the

CH. VI. Gil Blas goes to the play at Grenada. His surprise at seeing one of the actresses, and what

CH. VIII. The reception of Gil Blas among the players at Grenada; and another old acquaintance

CH. IX. An extraordinary companion at supper; and an account of their conversation.

CH. X. The Marquis de Marialva gives a commission to Gil Blas. That faithful secretary acquits

CH. XII. Gil Blas takes lodgings in a readyfurnished house. He gets acquainted with Captain

CH. XIII. Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both sides.

They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be anticipated.

CH. XIV. Fabricio finds a situation for Gil Blas in the establishment of Count Galiano, a Sicilian

CH. XVI. An accident happens to the Count de Galiano's monkey; his lordship's affliction on that

CH. I. Gil Blas scrapes an acquaintance of some value, and finds wherewithal to make him

CH. II. Gil Blas is introduced to the Duke of Lerma, who admits him among the number of his

secretaries, and requires a specimen of his talents, with which he is well satisfied.

CH. III. All is not gold that glitters. Some uneasiness resulting from the discovery of that

principle in philosophy, and its practical application to existing circumstances.

CH. IV. Gil Blas becomes a favourite with the Duke of Lerma, and the confidant of an important

CH. V. The joys, the honours, and the miseries of a court life, in the person of Gil Blas.

CH. VI. Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a hint of his wretched condition. That minister deals

CH. VII. A good use made of the fifteen hundred ducats. A first introduction to the trade of

CH. IX. Gil Blas makes a large fortune in a short time, and behaves like other wealthy upstarts.

CH. X. The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A

commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue.

CH. XII. Catalina's real condition a worry and alarm to Gil Blas. His precautions for his own ease

CH. XIII. Gil Blas goes on personating the great man. He hears news of his family: a touch of

CH. I. Scipio's scheme of marriage for Gil Blas. The match, a rich goldsmith's daughter.

CH. II. In the progress of political vacancies, Gil Blas recollects that there is such a man in the

world as Don Alphonso de Leyva; and renders him a service from motives of vanity.

CH. III. Preparations for the marriage of Gil Blas. A spoke in the wheel of Hymen.

CH. IV. The treatment of Gil Blas in the tower of Segovia. The cause of his imprisonment.

CH. V. His reflections before he went to sleep that night, and the noise that waked him.

CH. VII. Scipio finds Gil Blas out in the tower of Segovia, and brings him a budget of news.

CH. VIII. Scipio's first journey to Madrid: its object and success. Gil Blas falls sick. The

CH. IX. Scipio's second journey to Madrid. Gil Blas is set at liberty on certain conditions. Their

CH. X. Their doings at Madrid. The rencounter of Gil Blas in the street, and its consequences.

CH. I. Gil Blas sets out for the Asturias; and passes through Valladolid, where he goes to see his

old master, Doctor Sangrado. By accident, he comes across Signor Manuel Ordonnez, governor of

CH. II. Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his

CH. III. Gil Blas sets out for Valencia, and arrives at Lirias; description of his seat; the particulars

CH. IV. A journey to Valencia, and a visit to the lords of Leyva. The conversation of the

CH. V. Gil Blas goes to the play, and sees a new tragedy. The success of the piece. The public

CH. VI. Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity, whose

pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be.

CH. VII. Gil Blas returns to his seat at Lirias. Scipio's agreeable intelligence, and a reform in the

CH. IX. Nuptials of Gil Blas with the fair Antonia; the style and manner of the ceremony; the

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the

CH. I. Containing the subject of the greatest joy that Gil Blas ever felt, followed up, as our

greatest pleasures too generally are, by the most melancholy event of his life. Great changes at court,

CH. 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.

CH. III. The project of retirement is prevented, and Joseph Navarro brought upon the stage again,

CH. V. The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the service

CH. VI. The application of the three hundred pistoles, and Scipio's commission connected with them.

CH. VII. Gil Blas meets with his friend Fabricio once more; the accident, place, and

CH. VIII. Gil Blas gets forward progressively in his master's affections. Scipio's return to Madrid,

CH. IX.. How my lord duke married his only daughter, and to whom: with the bitter

CH. 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

CH. XII. Don Alphonso de Leyva comes to Madrid; the motive of his journey a severe affliction

CH. XIII. Gil Blas meets Don Gaston de Cogollos and Don Andrew de Tordesillas at the

drawingroom, and adjourns with them to a more convenient place. The story of Don Gaston and

Donna Helena de Galisteo concluded. Santillane renders some service to Tordesillas.

CH. I. Gil Blas sent to Toledo by the minister. The purpose of his journey and its success.

CH. II. Santillane makes his report to the minister, who commissions him to send for Lucretia.

CH. III. Lucretia's popularity; her appearance before the king; his passion, and its consequences.

CH. V. The son of the Genoese is acknowledged by a legal instrument, and named Don Henry

Philip de Guzman. Santillane establishes his household, and arranges the course of his studies.

CH. VI. Scipio's return from New Spain. Gil Blas places him about Don Henry's person. That

young nobleman's course of study. His career of honour, and his father's matrimonial speculation on

CH. VII. An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio. Their last conversation together,

CH. X. A difficult, but successful, weaning from the world. The minister's employments in his

CH. XI. A change in his lordship for the worse. The marvellous cause, and melancholy

CH. XII. The proceedings at the Castle of Loeches after his lordship's death, and the course which

CH. XIII. The return of Gil Blas to his seat. His joy at finding his goddaughter Seraphina

THERE are some people in the world so mischievous as not to read a work without applying the vicious or

ridiculous characters it may happen to contain to eminent or popular individuals. I protest publicly against the

pretended discovery of any such likenesses. My purpose was to represent human life historically as it exists:

God forbid I should hold myself out as a portraitpainter. Let not the reader then take to himself public

property; for if he does, he may chance to throw an unlucky light on his own character: as Phaedrus expresses

Certain physicians of Castille, as well as of France, are sometimes a little too fond of trying the bleeding and

lowering system on their patients. Vices, their patrons, and their dupes, are of every day's occurrence, To be

sure, I have not always adopted Spanish manners with scrupulous exactness; and in the instance of the

players at Madrid, those who know their disorderly modes of living may reproach me with softening down

their coarser traits: but this I have been induced to do from a sense of delicacy, and in conformity with the

READER! hark you, my friend! Do not begin the story of my life till I have told you a short tale. Two

students travelled together from Penafiel to Salamanca. Finding themselves tired and thirsty, they stopped by

the side of a spring on the road. While they were resting there, after having quenched their thirst, by chance

they espied on a stone near them, even with the ground, part of an inscription, in some degree effaced by

time, and by the tread of flocks in the habit of watering at that spring. Having washed the stone, they were

able to trace these words in the dialect of Castille; Aqui esta encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias.

Heyday! roars out the younger, a lively, heedless fellow, who could not get on with his deciphering for

laughter: This is a good joke indeed: "Here lies interred the soul." . . . . A soul interred! . . . . I should like to

know the whimsical author of this ludicrous epitaph. With this sneer he got up to go away. His companion,

who had more sense, said within himself: Underneath this stone lies some mystery; I will stay, and see the

end of it. Accordingly, he let his comrade depart, and without loss of time began digging round about the

stone with his knife till he got it up. Under it he found a purse of leather, containing an hundred ducats with a

card on which was written these words in Latin: "Whoever thou art who hast wit enough to discover the

meaning of the inscription, I appoint thee my heir, in the hope thou wilt make a better use of my fortune than

I have done!" The student, out of his wits at the discovery, replaced the stone in its former position, and set

Now, my good friend and reader, no matter who you are, you must be like one or the other of these two

students. If you cast your eye over my adventures without fixing it on the moral concealed under them, you

will derive very little benefit from the perusal: but if you read with attention you will find that mixture of the

WALTER SCOTT, who craved the beatitude the word is his own that would attend the perusal of

another book as entrancing as Gil Blas, was on the side of the untutored public which knows nothing of

technical classifications or of M. Bruneti�re's theory of the "evolution des genres." Lesage's great book,

though scarcely answering to the exact technical definition of a picaresque novel the biography of a picaro

or rogue belongs, nevertheless, by its external form, to the picaresque type of fiction; and Scott would

certainly have admitted that its picaresqueness was very good of its kind; that it was in fact as picaresque as

could be expected of a Frenchman who was conspicuously an "honn�te homme" and who signed himself

"bourgeois de Paris." But In all likelihood he would have instantly added that it was not the "picaresqueness"

of Gil Blas which has given that production its fame; and that, if Lesage's masterpiece has lived so long, and

if it lives today with such a fresh and abundant life, this constant appeal has been made in spite of its

The application of the scientific method to literary criticism during the last generation has steadily tended to

define works of art as "documents" of their epoch, and at the same time to classify them according to their

structural variations rather than to accept them wholly as sources of human pleasure. The novel of Lesage for

the purposes of classification, may be viewed as a picaresque novel, and it is interesting and legitimate to

note that it is no doubt the best of its kind; yet there is equally little doubt that thousands of readers who do

not know what the word "picaresque" means have for several generations regarded Gil Blas as simply the

best of all novels, and that their reasons have been based on qualities quite independent of the mould into

which it happened to be run. This is, in fact, the truth which these brief remarks are meant to set forth. In

order to become a classic, and in order to hold its own among the books of the world, Gil Blas has had to live

down its picaresqueness. The book has survived, and become one of the great books, notwithstanding the

characteristics which seemed destined to confine it to the museum of antique literary forms.

Walter Scott's recognition of the supreme delightfulness of Gil Blas has not been general among the critics;

indeed, the sense of its intrinsic value as a definition of life must rather be placed to the credit of the

uncritical public. Voltaire, referring to Lesage in his "Si�cle de Louis XIV," limits his praise to the remark :

"His novel Gil Blas has survived because of the naturalness of the style." The curtness and inadequacy of this

remark are probably due rather to the fact that Voltaire did not see beyond the superficial traits of this novel,

its general picaresque atmosphere, than, as has so often been asserted, to any malicious intent to decry a book

in which he supposed himself to have been held up to ridicule. [The traditional view is, however, plausible

enough, as Mr. James FitzmauriceKelly has shown in his introduction to the edition of Gil Blas published in

the "World's Classics." There can be no doubt as to Lesage having ridiculed Voltaire in two of his plays.]

Joubert, whose delicacy was a hothouse fruit grown in the thin subsoil and the devitalised air in which he was

compelled to live, corroborates Voltaire, while revealing his own prejudices after all, is not the main

interest of criticism the light it throws upon the critic? in a characteristic utterance : "Lesage's novels

would appear to have been written in a caf� by a dominoplayer, after spending the evening at the play."

Evidently this is a long way from the "beatitude" of Walter Scott, but it is nearer the point of view of Mr.

Warner Allen, who, while he notes in his remarkable General Introduction to his edition of Celestine in the

Picaresque Section of the "Library of Early Novelists," to which this volume belongs, that Gil Blas "has a

conscience," is ingeniously effective in arguing that the spirit of Gil Blas is essentially picaresque by

which he means that realism and materialism are so predominantly its note that it must be classed well below

"Don Quixote," where the heterogeneous picaresque material is beautifully fused by the 1magination of an

idealist. "It is just because Lesage ignores the idealistic side of man," Mr. Allen says, "that Gil Blas misses

being a great creation." On the other hand, La Harpe, who had read many books, but was no doubt the very

opposite of a scientific critic of literature, praises Gil Blas not merely, as did Scott, for its entertainment, its

agr�ment, but also for its moral inspiration; utile dulci, he insists, ought to be the device of this excellent

book, forgetting that Lesage has himself written the precept of Horace on its titlepage. "C'est l'�cole du

monde que Gil Blas," La Harpe continues; and he remarks with singular felicity that Lesage in Gil Blas "has

not fallen into that gratuitous profusion of minute detail which is nowadays taken to be truth." This comment

suggests the probability that the reproach addressed to Lesage as to his lack of idealism is one that La Harpe

would be disinclined to accept; and that they who make it have other standards for judging a work of art than

those of the public to whom it is addressed, or indeed than those of the artist himself, especially such an artist

as Lesage, who in his "Declaration" to the reader says expressly: "My sole aim has been to represent life as it

is" : "Je ne me suis propos� que de repr�senter la vie des hommes telle qu'elle est."

Certain of Lesage's predecessors had already declared it to be their aim to write books which should be a

wholesome reaction against the romanticism of the tales of chivalry that had so long delighted the taste of

Europe. The subtitle of Alem�n's famous novel, Guzm�n de Alfarache, was Atalaya de la Vida which

Chapelain translated by "Image" or "Miroir de la Vie Humaine." And long before Lesage, the author of

L'Histoire Comique de Francion used almost the identical terms of Alem�n and Lesage in announcing his tale

"Nous avons dessein de voir une image de la vie humaine, de sorte qu'il nous en faut montrer ici diverses

pi�ces." Francion, less picaresque than the hero of Alem�n, was undoubtedly what he has been called by one

of Lesage's biographers, M. Lintilhac, a direct precursor of Gil Blas; and there can be no question as to the

importance of the influence exercised upon Lesage by Charles Sorel's admirable performance. But, however

easily even a little erudition can discover possible prototypes of Gil Blas in the late sixteenth and early

seventeenth century literature of both France and Spain however picaresque, in a word, Gil Blas may be,

and whatever else it may be its picaresqueness was obviously, for Lesage, not an end in itself, but merely

a device for carrying out his main project, which was "the representation of life"; and the meaning he put into

those words was incomparably richer than was their connotation on the lips of an Alem�n or even a Sorel.

Lesage found ready to his hand one of the most convenient literary forms tint the novel ever assumed for the

achievement of the end he had in view. That end was to hold a mirror up to Nature, and to the whole of

This ambitious project has haunted most observers who have essayed the novel form. It was obviously the

end and aim of the author of Anna Karenina. But such is the complexity of human relations, such the variety

of the kinds of human plights, such the swift passage of events, such are the endless differences and the

fleeting character of the situations presented to the artistic consciousness at any moment of time, that only the

most selfconfident craftsman would be tempted, in his sane mind, to undertake their complete

representation. The mirror in which a writer would seek to converge and to foreshorten the vast spectacle of

things must needs be an allbut unmanageable revolving mirror of gigantic dimensions, unless some way he

found of dispensing with such machinery altogether. Tolstoi made no attempt to achieve an artistic synthesis

of life as a whole. He was content to map life out on a sort of Mercator's projection. Balzac despaired

altogether of success, and confined himself to "doing" the multitudinous phases of human activity piecemeal.

Lesage, on the other hand, hit on the happy idea of using the picaro type, the picaresque tradition in the novel,

to facilitate his project. And what device, in fact, could be neater and more rapid? Certainly not the invention

of Zola. The author of the series of the RougonMacquart set himself the task of describing the whole of

French society at the end of the last century. He believed himself to have improved on Balzac's method by

conceiving of a familytree, with branches sufficiently wide spreading to illustrate every kind of activity of

which French men or French women were capable in his time. The unity of his result was to be secured by

postulating a family, the sum of the several lives of whose members should be coterminous with the

Conscious existence of all their essential French fellowtypes at a certain historical period. The plan was

Lesage, writing at the opening of the eighteenth century, had, it is true, the luck to be free to employ or, in

fact, to have thrust upon him by the literary taste of his time a simpler trick for the representation of life,

The literary air was full of picaresque odours. But, while Lesage came after Sorel and Alem�n, and a score of

other same storytellers eager to temper the bombast of the hour by the saving salt of realism, the living

models that surrounded him were quite as suggestive as any he might have been led to imitate in the books of

his predecessors. Lintilhac, Cherbuliez, Bruneti�re, have dwelt in detail on this fact. What need had Lesage of

a Guzm�n or a Francion, when before his very eyes were such conspicuous models for the study of the valet

parvenu as the Cardinals Dubois and Alberoni? And why go farther afield than the memoirs of the famous

Gourville, which appeared in 1673, if one really feels impelled at all costs to account for the origin of Gil

Blas, and to answer the futile question, "Where did Lesage get his idea?" That kind of inquiry explains

everything except the essential. Homer and Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Corneille, have been put to the

same torture as Lesage; and in the folds of their royal robes whole colonies of industrious parasitic moths are

still furiously and often enviously at work. There is a "Lesage question" as there is an "Homeric question."

But of this the public recks little. It sanely holds the view of M. de Maurepas, who wittily defined an author

as "un homme qui prend aux livres tout ce qui lui passe par la t�te." The public rightly judges the work of art

by the criterion of pleasure which it is capable of giving. By that standard Gil Blas was long ago classed

among the delightful books of the world. How many of its beauties are plagiarisms, or whether any of them

are, are inquiries which the wise are content to leave to the mandarins of literature. [While the oftreported

story of the pillage by Lesage of a lost Spanish manuscript is a myth, it is incontestable that in the last books

of Gil Blas he embodied long passages from a French translation of two Italian pamphlets on The Disgrace of

Count Olivares, and from a book published in 1683 at Cologne entitled, Le Ministre Parfait ou le

ComteDuc. It is easy to prove also that Lesage had read Lazarilla de Tormes and a great many Spanish tales

and plays; but, as M. Lintilhac says, so had Corneille, yet the Cid remains the Cid.]

The representation of life, then, is the avowed object of Lesage. Gil Blas is a microcosm. One might apply to

Lesage the words of Balzac in allusion to the Comedie Humaine : "J'aurai port� une soci�t� toute enti�re dans

ma t�te." Gil Blas is a picture, singularly vivid and comprehensive, of the society of France at the close of the

reign of Louis XIV and at the beginning of the Regency. Lesage, like St. Simon, sought to reflect the life of

his time; but he is greater than St. Simon because of the larger general interest and significance of his literary

form. Lesage was a gentleman, serenely, gaily taking notes on the world that surrounded him; but, as it

pleased him to publish all his notes in his own lifetime, he adopted the novel form and the device of a

Spanish atmosphere. Happily the society that surrounded Lesage in the Paris of the end of the seventeenth

and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries was sufficiently complex and representative for an exhaustive

Gil Blas is an encyclopadia of human types. No other single book contains so rich a collection of specimens

of the genus homo. The success with which Lesage has introduced into Gil Blas virtually every form of

human character, all sorts and conditions of men, is one of the miracles of literary art. The purely traditional

picaro types, the vagabond and the beggar, the unscrupulous highwayman and the cutthroat, have, after all,

comparatively small importance in the great comedy of life which Lesage depicts. These picaro types move

in and out of the vast throng peopling his pages much as their counterparts in the flesh, the Apaches of the

Marais quarter, jostled on the Pont Neuf the honest workman, the country bumpkin, the banker Turcaret, the

bourgeois merchant, the strutting soldier, the barefoot monk, the daintily stepping petits ma�tres, the authors

and the actors, the ministers and the high officials, the servants and the adventurers, the priests, and the

pr�cieuses peering from their vinaigrettes. From the brigand cave that sheltered the jailbird to the

drawingroom of the Marquise de Chaves, from the boudoir of the enticing Laure to the cabinet of the Duke

of Olivares, we visit every haunt of human activity and every social condition, conversing on the way with

comedians, doctors, poets, lawyers, statesmen, valets, judges of the Inquisition, shopkeepers, courtesans,

archbishops, and countless other actors of the Human Comedy. The final impression is that we have been in

contact with the whole of life and with life as a whole. In this connexion it is pertinent to quote the verdict of

Nodier in the "Notice" prefixed to the famous and now rare edition of Gil Blas containing the woodcuts of

Jean Gigoux (Paris 1835) : "Comme il avait embrass� tout ce qui appartient � l'homme dans sa composition,

il osa se prescrire d'embrasser toute la langue dans son travail." In other words, the grammarian and the

lexicographer have in Gil Blas what Nodier is justified in calling "un monument de la langue."

We have witnessed the amusing spectacle arminarm with Gil Blas de Santillane, a puppet of circumstance,

but the most good natured of companions. No youth of sprightlier wit, of keener observation, or of more

unfailing good humour was ever born of mortal man or immortal writer. Gil Blas is too agreeable a fellow for

us to dream of parting company with him merely because of his escapades. Moreover, no one was ever long

in his company without discovering that the firstfruit of his innate gift of observation is a habit of reflection

gradually conducting him to the point of view of the great American pragmatist. For Gil Blas, as for Franklin,

whatever else honesty may be, it is at all events the best policy. His ambition "to get on," to succeed, is not

the ambition of a Julien Sorel. He is not ready and willing to succeed at any price. He would not say cynically

with Marie Caroline of Naples :"je vois trop que la force seule compte et que la bonne foi ne sert qu'a �tre

dupe." (Letter to the Marquis de Gallo, July 2, 1800.) In the case of Gil Blas, the habit of reflection has

engendered a conscience. As he grows older in experience, the practical promptings of that conscience tend

to arrest many an impulse to indulge his petty vices and to reinforce the virtues which he is prudent enough to

regard as useful. His efforts to better his lot, while they bring to the fore his harmless vanity, and often indeed

a certain less agreeable snobbishness, are after all to his credit. He is the first to laugh at his own mistakes, as

he is the first to learn the lesson of his blunders. Here is a characteristic utterance of his:

"I let myself go with the current for three weeks. I gave myself up to every form of voluptuous pleasure. But I

will say at the same time that in the midst of it all a sense of remorse often mingled bitterness with my

delight. Debauch did not stifle this remorse; my remorse increased, on the contrary, in proportion as I became

more and more of a debauchee; and, as a result of my fortunately honest nature, the disorder of the theatrical

life began to strike me with horror. Ah, wretch that you are, I said to myself, is it thus that you are fulfilling

the expectations of your family? Is it impossible, merely because you are a servant, to be an honest man? Do

you really find it worth while to live with such a vicious crew? Envy, anger and avarice dominate some of

them; modesty is unknown to others. Some have given themselves up to intemperance and idleness, while in

others pride has become insolence. Enough of this! I will dwell no longer with the seven deadly sins."

From all that we know of Lesage himself, as well as from a comparison of Gil Blas with the author's other

Works, it seems legitimate to conclude that the good humour of his most famous hero is merely the

expression of his own philosophic gaiety, at all events of his own disabused placidity, his bourgeois

moderation and practical sense, his bias toward taking things easily. Life, when viewed at the angle adopted

by Lesage, is an endless series of comic situations of a highly diverting and edifying character. Many of its

conventions, which are nurtured on hypocrisy and snobbery, form a constant object of his good humoured

raillery, just as they form the subjectmatter of the comic verve of his great master, Moli�re. Both have the

most refreshing sense of values and an unimpeachable intellectual honesty. The most comic incidents of the

tale are the series of rebuffs experienced by Lesage's naive hero before he finally reaches the point where

discretion becomes second nature. With what touching and respectful candour does Gil Blas fall a prey to the

pretensions and foibles of the great! Note the art with which Lesage, juxtaposing his hero with, for instance,

an Archbishop of Granada, shows the vain prelate so enamoured of his own productions as to suffer no

honest criticism from even the most disinterested of his acolytes. First cajoled by flattery, then infuriated by

the naive frankness of Gil Blas, whose opinion he had solicited, he shows the rash youth the door; and Gil

Blas returns once again to his life of adventure. It is his rich fund of good sense that saves him here as

throughout his career, and that keeps his judgment sane and his heart true amid all the eccentricities and

affectations and passing passions, and even the temptations, which surround and beset him during his

checkered years. This jolly easygoing boon companion is a long time learning to be canny, but he is never

really a fool. He comes out ultimately the poorer for the loss of a good many illusions, but profoundly

convinced that straightforwardness in human relations is as desirable a good as simplicity in art.

Watch him with his friend Fabrice, turned writer � la mode, after having been the astute lackey who early in

"le m�tier de laquais est impossible, je l'avoue, pour un imbecile; mais il a des charmes pour un gar�on

d'esprit. Un g�nie sup�rieur qui se met en condition ne fait pas son service mat�riellement comme un nigaud.

Il entre dans une maison pour commander plut�t que pour servir. Il commence par �tudier son ma�tre, il se

Fabrice, seized by "la rage d'�crire," as Gil Blas calls it, and convinced that he has in him the stuff of a great

writer, ignores the sage advice of his employer who has warned him that poetry is not all beer and skittles,

and comes up to Madrid, the centre of "les beaux esprits," "in order to form his taste." He falls under the

influence of one of the leaders in a logrolling literary set, and so adroitly imitates the fashion of the hour

that he is regarded as one of the cleverest writers of the younger generation. He and Gil Blas meet, after many

years, over a bottle of wine; and Fabrice reads to his friend a sonnet which Gil Blas finds absurdly obscure.

"A poet capable of producing such rubbish as that," he says, "can deceive only his time"; and he adds, "your

sonnet is merely pompous nonsense." The tortured, involved, affected style disgusts Gil Blas as such a style

always disgusted Lesage, whose one ambition was to be an "�crivain naturel qui parle comme le commun des

hommes," and who detested "le langage pr�cieux" which the great ladies and certain wits of his time took to

be the mark of genius and a password for immortality. Fabrice becomes angry. "Tu n'es qu'une b�te avec ton

style naturel," he exclaims; and he maliciously reminds Gil Blas of what befell him with the Archbishop of

Granada. The allusion makes the two old friends laugh, and they finish the evening over a third bottle.

Yes, Gil Blas, who is a kind of joyous jackofall trades, capable, as Fabrice on another occasion puts it, of

fulfilling all kinds of employment, since he possesses "l'outil universel," is interesting and sympathetic quite

as much because of his sound sense and ready wit as because of his amusing adventures. But this good sense

and this wit, it should be remembered, are the fruits of his experience. Gil Blas's character is slowly formed

by life under the reader's eye. Successively the dupe of the habits and the manners, the prejudices and the

ideals of each social condition which he traverses in his advance towards the stable equilibrium of middle

age, he is too intelligent ever to remain dazzled by his surroundings for more than a brief period. You

constantly hear him, after each fresh round with Fate, saying in his natural French way: "�a n'est pas �a; there

must be some thing better than that in store for me!" Even the seduction of life at Court ceases eventually to

charm him; and one of his most poignant regrets is the fact that he had forgotten under that corrupting

influence his father and mother and the old canon, his uncle. He does his best later on to make amends for

this neglect. On his way to his country place at Lirias he is suddenly filled with remorse, and he turns aside

towards Oviedo, where his parents live. His own dream now is to watch over their last years; and he looks

forward, on arriving home, to inscribing in gold letters on the door of his father's house the Latin verses:

Alas! it is almost too late, for he arrives just in time to bury his father. He had previously entered the country

inn, where he had been recognised by the inn keeper with lively joy. "By Saint Anthony of Padua," his host

had exclaimed, "here is the son of the good Blas de Santillane"; and his wife had chimed in with, "Why, yes,

so it is. Oh, I recognise him. He is hardly changed. It's that wideawake little Gil Blas who had more

intelligence than inches. I can still see him dropping in here for a bottle of wine for his uncle's supper." Gil

Blas has changed, nevertheless. Fabrice is too keen not to perceive it some time afterwards when Gil Blas

visits him at the hospital. Fabrice remarks upon his modest bearing and observes: "You haven't the vain and

insolent air that prosperity is wont to give." Gil Blas explains the reason why: "Les disgraces ont purifi� ma

virtu; et j'ai appris a l'�cole de l'adversit� � jouir des richesses sans m'en laisser poss�der." He is now and then

to be a backslider still, but we know that he has learned the essential lesson of life. Really, as the Italians say,

The rapidity of the narrative enhances the effect of optimism which is so inspiriting throughout the whole

book. The transitions from the episodes of bad luck to those of good fortune take place, as Smollett has

already pointed out, so suddenly that the reader positively has no time to pity Gil Blas. He is speedily

inspired with a firm confidence in Lesage's ingenuity, which somehow manages to extricate his hero from

every possible embarrassment. Lesage's point of view, as an observer of life, is thus quickly revealed to be a

lively sense of life's chronic succession of ups and downs, and of the merely relative importance of its plights.

"I began to lose courage when I found myself back again in so miserable a case. I had grown accustomed to

the conveniences of existence, and I could no longer, as before, regard indigence with cynicism. Yet I will

confess I was wrong to indulge in sadness after having so many times discovered that no sooner had Fortune

Lesage accepts the stoical ideal of patience in adversity, but he does not accept it in the stoical way. His

philosophy is the Christian belief in a Providence upon whom sane mortals may serenely rely. Providence, he

knows, can be counted upon to hold the balance true on that Day of Judgment, when all human things will be

set right, and when there will be a startling reversal of human verdicts. Convinced, like Bishop Butler, that

things will be as they will be, his experience of life has taught him that the best philosophy is to bide one's

me, all one's antennae out For Lesage the logical result of having been frequently a fool is to cease being

It would be possible and amusing to draw a parallel in this connection between the philosophy of Lesage and

that of an even more successful French playwright of the present day, M. Alfred Capus who has not yet,

however, written a Gil Blas and to contrast the manner of the two with that of Beyle in his

characterisation of Julien Sorel, Gil Blas is too often, if you like, a genial rascal, as are so many of M. Capus's

heroes, but he is never an odiously cynical one like his servant Scipion, and like Julien. While Lesage could

"Je prends tout doucement les hommes comme ils sont, J'accoutume mon �me � soufirir ce qu'ils font . . . Oui,

je vois ces d�fauts dont votre �me murmure Comme vices unis � l'humaine nature, Et mon esprit enfin n'est

pas plus offens� De voir un homme fourbe, injuste, int�ress�, Que de voir des vautours affam�s de carnage,

Beyle did not confine himself to "accustoming his soul to suffer" the enormities that men commit, but

positively created in Julien Sorel an unscrupulous professor of energy whom he would appear to have

regarded as an excellent model. Lesage, on the other hand, must be looked upon as a moralist; a moralist

indulgent, no doubt such indulgence was the finest flower of his inexhaustible knowledge of life yet a

moralist in the same sense in which Shakespeare and Moli�re are moralists. Moreover, Lesage has no cynical

Blas forcing him to confine the subjectmatter of his novel to such naturalistic notations as were the

He had notably no such bias, either "cynical" or "moral," as has wittingly altered the reports of so many

British observers of life, who have regarded the pursuit of literature as a mission, to be accepted with a high

and strenuous purpose, for the improvement of their fellows. Thus, even a Thackeray wrote first and foremost

for edification. In a recently published letter to his friend Robert Hall, Thackeray refers as follows to Vanity

"I want to leave everybody dissatisfied and unhappy at the end of the story we ought all to be with our

own and all other stories. Good God! don't I see (in that maybe cracked and warped lookingglass in which I

am always looking) my own weaknesses, wickednesses, lusts, follies, shortcomings? in company, let us hope,

with better qualities about which we will pretermit discourse. We must lift up our voices about these and

howl to a congregation of fools: so much, at least, has been my endeavour." (The Times, July 17, 1911.)

The idea of "howling to a congregation of fools" would have struck Lesage as a counsel of impertinent

illbreeding, or, at all events, as a grotesque attitude for a selfrespecting novelist. Of course, Thackeray was

in the tradition of a literature which counts among its chief masterpieces the Pilgrim's Progress; but if the

Puritan point of view is good sociology and good Tolstoism, it is not necessarily for that reason good art; and

it would even seem to make "good art" a more difficult achievement. In the great book just mentioned there is

no laugh of Tom Jones to clear the air. Thackeray would have seemed, indeed, in Vanity Fair to have been

more of an artist than his pamphleteering preoccupations appeared likely to allow him to become. He himself

states his object in that book to have been to indicate in cheerful terms that we are for the most part an

abominably foolish and selfish people. Incorrigible misanthropist, he sets out to draw up a savage indictment

of the society of his time. He is cheerful, as cheerful as he knows how to be; but, as he has resolved to give no

one in his book a chance, his cheerfulness fails to produce all its intended effect. Finally, one and all, even

Amelia, are branded because foredoomed. But what is the result? Gibbeted for an example, they inspire more

pity than horror; and not only does all our sympathy go out to them against the despotic heartlessness of the

author, who so unfairly nailed them to the cross, but we fail even to draw the whole of the useful general

moral which Thackeray holds to be essential. Thus Thackeray upsets even his own ends; anxious, by the

confessed clariontoned morality of his appeal, to produce the effect aimed at by a prophet in Israel, he

nevertheless inspires in his reader a quick and sane recoil before the arbitrary injustice, or, at all events, the

incredibility of the author's misanthropy. In literary art, in fact, the only way to convey the illusion of reality

Lesage, like the Tolstoi of the good period, had the tact and good sense to perceive this. He does not make the

unscientific and inartistic blunder of humiliating his heroes. Like a Balzac or a Tolstoi or a Henry James, he

gives them their full value, takes them for all they are worth. The pretension that naturalism, because

superficially true to a certain aspect of life, is realism in the complete sense of the word, is a view which

Lesage in Gil Blas triumphantly repudiates; and he differs from many playwrights of contemporary France,

who appear to be so enamoured of caddishness as to regard its manifestations as pre eminently worthy of

presentation in the novel or on the stage. One of the ablest of Lesage's commentators has called him the

Homer of naturalism; no neater phrase could be found to define his importance and his manner.

Nor is it the fault of Lesage if his immediate influence upon the literature of his time was perhaps not wholly

what he would himself have wished it to be. It is a commonplace to note that Lesage helped to prepare in

France that eighteenth century with which he was in so many respects out of sympathy. There was a whole

side of Lesage that was out of touch with the modern world surrounding him. M. Faguet seems to me

absolutely right as to this point. The spirit, the attitude of Lesage are seventeenth century for, after all,

the seventeenth century was realist while so eminently moralist; he believes in the superiority of the clear old

form of expression; he abominates an affected style; he prefers natural utterance that everybody can

understand to individual experiments in ingenious phraseology. Moreover, while not at all the conscious

moralist, he is a moralist all the same; he has a certain generalising habit, the liking for large vistas,

harmonious inclusive ranges of thought; his thought scapes have the perfection and the proportions of a

garden by Le N�tre. But it is nevertheless certain that the immense success of Lesage as a realist, the fact that

he made realism look so easy, constituted a terrible incentive to imitation; and that, as a matter of fact, his

example was just one of those which no writer could afford to follow who had not his marvellous good sense

and his mental and moral poise. Without such moral balance and such good sense the wouldbe realist is

almost certain to become addicted to the grosser forms of naturalism, to exercise, that is, his faculty of clear

vision on special salient and picturesque, even salacious and perverse cases, rather than upon the types of the

average world with which average men are familiar. Thus there can be no doubt that Lesage's unconcern for

positive edification, his indifference to matters of conscience, was a trait of the eighteenth century, and a trait

for which he may to a certain extent be held responsible. It was inevitable that he should find imitators, and

that, in this sense, he may be said to open the way to a Cr�billon fils and a Laclos, even to a Louvet, for

whom he would have refused to be responsible, and to prepare an eighteenth century with which there is

every reason to suppose he would have become utterly out of sympathy, not merely as a man, but as an artist

It remains to consider Gil Blas as a work of literary art. In style it is one of the most perfect examples of

narrative prose in the world, comparable for limpidity, ease, and precision, with that of Cervantes in Don

Quixote. With regard to its composition, it is noticeable that the novel begins at the same pitch of calm

lucidity which is to characterise it to the end. The reader feels that the promise of the author in his

"Declaration," "I have merely undertaken to represent life as it is," is likely to be kept. Lesage speaks with

authority. The artists who inspire confidence with their very first stroke are not numerous. They belong to the

aristocracy of the masters. What do such certainty and distinction imply? They mean that the product is the

fruit of a mature intelligence; that the artist, be he sculptor, writer, or painter, has not undertaken to express

until his mind is, as we say, thoroughly made up as to the nature of its content, nor until he is serenely master

of the means at his disposal; that, in a word, he knows his business. In the case of Lesage it is peculiarly

significant that, when he published the first part of Gil Blas in 1715, he was already fortyseven years of age;

that the second part did not appear until 1724, nine years later; and that he was already an old gentleman with

a family of boys, one of whom had entered the Church, when he ended his lifework, by the publication of the

third part, in 1735. Gil Blas, in short, is the product of the maturity of one of the keenest observers that ever

looked out upon the spectacle of things. The broad goodhumoured gaiety of the earlier book, which vibrates

with a picaresque lilt, is shaded gradually down, in the second volume, into a finer, serener, more intellectual

irony. This change betrays the natural evolution in the author's interests and curiosities during the period

reaching from his fortyseventh to his sixtyseventh year. The gaiety of the six books of the first part is to be

contrasted with the soberer, more reflective spirit of the tale as it proceeds. We seem to be suiting our pace to

the increasingly graver temper of a man whose knowledge of life has become richer, his insight keener, his

heart more tolerant and generous. With the steady elimination of the picaresque element the novel becomes

more and more an inclusive criticism of life. The author seems to be brooding over his pages with a tenderer

care, as if he were more and more conscious of the significance, the magnificence even, of his task.

It is one of the results of this long gestation that Gil Blas has become a book of worldwide popularity. In the

history of letters it has been an inexhaustible source of energy. It inspired the realistic novel. From Smollett

and Marivaux to Dickens and Zola, and even to an Anatole France and to a Pio Baroja, Lesage has been the

avowed or unavowed model of those writers who have been passionately enamoured of life, and irrepressibly

compelled to express it. The influence of Lesage on the author, for instance, of Le Rouge et le Noir and of La

Chartreuse de Parme perhaps particularly on the Stendhal of the Chartreuse de Parme seems

incontestable. In August 1804, Beyle, writing to his sister Pauline, recommends her to read Gil Blas in order

to learn to know the world, and cites the famous anecdote of the Archbishop of Granada's sermons. In April

1805, he promises to bring her the book. In another undated letter to his sister, Beyle writes: "the most

accurate picture of human nature as it is, in the France of the eighteenth century, is still the book of Lesage,

Gil Blas. Meditate well this excellent work." And finally, in his Journal, under the date of "10 Flor�al, an xiii,

1805," Beyle notes his intention to cure himself of romanticism, and to learn to judge men as they are, by

rereading a certain number of books, among which he mentions Beaumarchais, the tales and La Pucelle of

Voltaire, Chamfort, and Gil Blas. That is to say, at the most impressionable period of his intellectual life

Beyle read and reread Gil Blas; a fact which a discerning critic might easily guess, as to the truth of which,

indeed, such a critic would feel an absolute conviction, and which the documents cited appear to leave

beyond a doubt It would perhaps be an exaggeration to pretend that but for Gil Blas, Beyle would not have

been Stendhal; but I may be permitted to quote the following passage from a private letter of M. Paul Arbelet,

the editor of Stendhal's Journal d'Italie. "Votre hypoth�se me parait tr�s s�duisante. Il y a sans aucun doute

quelque parent� intellectuelle entre Lesage et Stendhal, tous deux curieux d'observation morale, tous deux

juges sans illusions des faiblesses humaines, mais point misanthropes, car ils s'indignent peu des vices ou des

ridicules, qui les amusent plut�t ou les int�ressent. D'ailleurs l'un et l'autre manquent d'imagination et de

po�sie. Je comprends donc tr�s bien que vous ayez eu l'id�e d'une influence de Lesage sur Stendhal."

Furthermore, while Lesage is all this, the fountainhead of a great literary current, he is at the same time, as a

moralist, in the sanest Latin and French tradition, that which is marked, in successive epochs, by the serene

temper of a Horace, by the gay science, the pantagruelism of a Rabelais, by the irony of a Beaumarchais, who

"se h�ta de rire de tout, de peur d'�tre oblig� d'en pleurer," and finally by the tranquil mansuetude of a Renan:

observers, one and all, who, after having told the towers of all the citadels of science, became amusedly

aware that the only really absolute truth in the world is that all things are relative.

MY father, Blas of Santillane, after having borne arms for a long time in the Spanish service, retired to his

native place. There he married a chambermaid who was not exactly in her teens, and I made my debut on

this stage ten months after marriage. They afterwards went to live at Oviedo, where my mother got into

service, and my father obtained a situation equally adapted to his capacities as a squire. As their wages were

their fortune, I might have got my education as I could, had it not been for an uncle of mine in the town, a

canon, by name Gil Perez. He was my mother's eldest brother, and my godfather. Figure to yourself a little

fellow, three feet and a half high, as fat as you can conceive, with a head sunk deep between his shoulders,

and you have my uncle to the life. For the rest of his qualities, he was an ecclesiastic, and of course thought

of nothing but good living, I mean in the flesh as well as in the spirit, with the means of which good living his

He took me home to his own house from my infancy, and ran the risk of my bringing up. I struck him as so

brisk a lad, that he resolved to cultivate my talents. He bought me a primer, and undertook my tuition as far

as reading went: which was not amiss for himself as well as for me; since by teaching me my letters he

brushed up his own learning, which had not been pursued in a very scholastic manner; and, by dint of

application, he got at last to read his breviary out of hand, which he had never been able to do before. He

would have been very glad to have taught me Latin, to save expense, but, alas! poor Gil Perez! he had never

skimmed the first principles of it in the whole course of his life. I should not wonder if he was the most

ignorant member of the chapter, though on a subject involving as many possibilities as there were canons, I

presume not to pledge myself for anything like certainty. To be sure, I have heard it suggested, that he did not

gain his preferment altogether by his learning: but that he owed it exclusively to the gratitude of some good

nuns whose discreet factor he had been, and who had credit enough to procure him the order of priesthood

He was obliged therefore to place me under the correction of a master, so that I was sent to Doctor Godinez,

who had the reputation of being the most accomplished pedant of Oviedo. I profited so well under his

instructions, that by the end of five or six years I could read a Greek author or two, and had no very

inadequate conception of the Latin poets. Besides my classical studies, I applied to logic, which enabled me

to become an expert arguer. I now fell in love with discussions of all kinds to such an excess, that I stopped

his Majesty's subjects on the high road, acquaintance or strangers, no matter! and proposed some knotty point

of controversy. Sometimes I fell in with a clan of Irish, and an altercation never comes amiss to them! That

was your time, if you are fond of a battle. Such gestures! such grimaces! such contortions! Our eyes

sparkling, and our mouths foaming! Those who did not take us for what we affected to be, philosophers, must

But let that be as it will, I gained the reputation of no small learning in the town. My uncle was delighted,

because he prudently considered that I should so much the sooner cease to be chargeable to him. Come here,

Gil Blas, quoth he one day, you are got to be a fine fellow. You are past seventeen, and. a clever lad; you

must bestir yourself, and get forward in the world. I think of sending you to the university of Salamanca: with

your wit you will easily get a good post. I will give you a few ducats for your journey, and my mule, which

will fetch ten or twelve pistoles at Salamanca, and with such a sum at setting out, you will be enabled to hold

He could not have proposed to me anything more agreeable: for I was dying to see a little of life. At the same

time, I was not such a fool as to betray my satisfaction; and when it came to the hour of parting, by the

sensibility I discovered at taking leave of my dear uncle, to whom I was so much obliged, and by calling in

the stage effect of grief, I so softened the good soul, that he put his hand deeper into his pocket than he would

have done, could he have pried into all that was passing in the interior of my hypocritical little heart. Before

my departure I took a last leave of my papa and mamma, who loaded me with an ample inheritance of good

advice. They enjoined me to pray to God for my uncle, to go honestly through the world, not to engage in any

ill, and above all, not to lay my hands on other people's property. After they had lectured me for a good

while, they made me a present of their blessing which was all my patrimony and all my expectation. As soon

HERE I am, then, on the other side of Oviedo, in the road to Pegnaflor, with the world before me, as yet my

own master, as well master of a bad mule and forty good ducats, without reckoning on a little supplementary

cash purloined from my much honoured uncle. The first thing I did was to let my mule go as the beast liked,

that is to say, very lazily. I dropped the rein, and taking out my ducats, began to count them backwards and

forwards in my hat. I was out of my wits for joy, never having seen such a sum of money before, and could

not help looking at it and sifting it through my fingers. I had counted it over about the twentieth time, when

all at once my mule, with head raised, and ears pricked up, stood stock still in the middle of the high road. I

thought, to be sure, something was the matter; looked about for a cause, and perceiving a hat upon the

ground, with a rosary of large beads, at the same time heard a lugubrious voice pronounce these words: Pray,

honoured master, have pity on a poor maimed soldier! Please to throw a few small pieces into this hat; you

shall be rewarded for it in the other world. I looked immediately on the side whence the voice proceeded, and

saw, just by a thicket, twenty or thirty paces from me, a sort of a soldier, who had mounted the barrel of a

confounded long carbine on two cross sticks, and seemed to be taking aim at me. At a sight which made me

tremble for the patrimony of the Church committed to my care, I stopped short, made sure of my ducats, and

taking out a little small change, as I rode by the hat, placed to receive the charity of those quiet subjects who

had not the courage to refuse it, dropped in my contribution in detail, to convince the soldier how nobly I

dealt by him. He was satisfied with my liberality, and gave me a blessing for every kick I gave my mule in

my impatience to get out of his way; but the infernal beast, without partaking in the slightest degree of my

impatience, went at the old steady pace. A long custom of jogging on fair and softly under my uncle's weight

The prospect of my journey was not much improved by this adventure as a specimen. I considered within

myself that I had yet some distance to Salamanca, and might, not improbably, meet with something worse.

My uncle seemed to have been very imprudent not to have consigned me to the care of a muleteer. That, to be

sure, was what he ought to have done; but his notion was, that by giving me his mule, my journey would be

cheaper; and that entered more into his calculation than the dangers in which I might be involved on the road.

To retrieve his error, therefore, I resolved, if I had the good luck to arrive safe at Pegnaflor, to offer my mule

for sale, and take the opportunity of a muleteer going to Astorga, whence I might get to Salamanca by a

similar conveyance. Though I had never been out of Oviedo I was acquainted with the names of the towns

through which I was to pass; a species of information I took care to procure before my setting out.

I got safe and sound to Pegnaflor, and stopped at the door of a very decent looking inn. My foot was scarcely

out of the stirrup before the landlord was at my side, overwhelming me with public house civility. He untied

my cloakbag with his own hands, swung it across his shoulders, and ushered my Honour into a room, while

one of his men led my mule to the stable. This landlord, the most busy prattler of the Asturias, ready to bother

you impertinently about his own concerns, and, at the same time, with a sufficient portion of curiosity to

worm himself into the knowledge of yours, was not long in telling me that his name was Andrew Corcuelo;

that he had seen some service as a sergeant in the army, which he had quitted fifteen months ago, and married

a girl of Castropol, who, though a little tawny or so, knew how to make both ends meet as well as the best of

them. He told me a thousand things besides which he might just as well have kept private. Thinking himself

entitled, after this voluntary confidence, to an equal share of mine, he asked me in a breath, and without

further preface, whence I came, whither I was going, and who I was. To all this I felt myself bound to answer,

article by article, because, though rather abrupt in asking them, he accompanied each question with so

apologetic a bow, beseeching me with so submissive a grimace not to be offended at his curiosity, that I was

drawn in to gratify it whether I would or no. Thus by degrees did we get into a long conversation, in the

course of which I took occasion to hint that I had some reasons for wishing to get rid of my mule, and travel

under convoy of a muleteer. He seemed on the whole to approve of my plan, though he could not prevail with

CH. II Gil Blas' alarm on his road to Pegnaflor; his adventures on his arrival in that town; and the character of the men with whom he supped. 16

himself to tell me so briefly; for he introduced his remarks by descanting on all the possible and probable

mischances to which travellers are liable on the road, not omitting an awkward story now and then. I thought

the fellow would never have done. But the conclusion of the argument was, that if I wanted to sell my mule,

he knew an honest jockey who would take it off my hands. I begged he would do me the favour to fetch him,

On his return he introduced the purchaser, with a high encomium on his integrity. We all three went into the

yard, and the mule was brought out to show paces before the jockey, who set himself to examine the beast

from head to foot. His report was bad enough. To be sure, it would not have been easy to make a good one;

but if it had been the pope's mule, and this fellow was to cheapen the bargain, it would have been just the

same: nay, to speak with all due reverence, if he had been asked to give an opinion of the pope's great toe,

from that disparaging habit of his, he would have pronounced it no better than the toe of any ordinary man.

He laid it down, therefore, as a principle, that the mule had all the defects a mule could have: appealing to the

landlord for a confirmation of his judgment, who, doubtless, had reasons of his own for not controverting his

friend's assertion. Well! says the jockey, with an air of in difference, What price have you the conscience to

ask for this devil of an animal? After such a panegyric, and master Corcuelo's certificate, whom I was fool

enough to take for a fairdealing man and a good judge of horseflesh, they might have had the mule for

nothing. I therefore told the dealer that I threw myself on his mercy: he must fix his own sum, and I should

expect no more. On this he began to affect the gentleman, and answered that I had found out his weak side

when I left it to his honour. He was right enough in that! his honour was his weak side! for instead of bidding

up to my uncle's estimate of ten or twelve pistoles, the rascal had the impudence to offer three ducats, which I

Having disencumbered myself of my mule in so tradesmanlike a manner, I went with my landlord to a carrier

who was to set out early the next morning for Astorga, and engaged to call me up in time. When we had

settled the hire of the mule, as well as the expenses on the road, I turned back towards the inn with Corcuelo,

who, as we went along, got into the private history of this muleteer. When I had been pestered with all the

tittle tattle of the town about this fellow, the changes were just beginning to ring on some new subject; but,

by good luck, a prettylooking sort of a man very civilly interrupted my loquacious friend. I left them

together, and sauntered on without the slightest suspicion of being at all concerned in their discourse.

I ordered supper as soon as I got to the inn. It was a fish day: but I thought eggs were better suited to my

finances. While they were getting ready I joined in conversation with the landlady, whom I had not seen

before. She seemed a pretty piece of goods enough, and such a stirring body, that I should have concluded, if

her husband had not told me so, her tavern must have plenty of custom. The moment the omelet was served

up I sat down to table by myself, and had scarcely got the relish of it, when my landlord walked in, followed

by the man who had stopped him in the street. This pleasant gentleman wore a long rapier, and might,

perhaps, be about thirty years of age. He came up to me in the most friendly manner possible. Mr Professor,

says he, I have just now heard that you are the renowned Gil Blas of Santillane, that ornament of Oviedo and

luminary of philosophy. And do my eyes behold that very greatest of all great scholars and wits, whose

reputation has run hither so fast before him? Little do you think, continues he, directing his discourse to the

landlord and landlady, little do you imagine, I say, what good luck has befallen you. Why, you have got hold

of a treasure. In this young gentleman you behold the eighth wonder of the world. Then running up and

throwing his arms about my neck, Excuse me, added he; but worlds would not bribe me to suppress the

I could not answer him so glibly as I wished, not so much for want of words as of breath; for he hugged me

so tight that I began to be alarmed for my wind pipe. As soon, however, as I had got my head out of durance,

I replied, Signor cavalier, I had not the least conception that my name was known at Pegnaflor. Known?

resumed he in the same pompous style; we keep a register of all great persons within a circuit of twenty

leagues round us. You have the character of a prodigy here; and I have not a shadow of doubt, but one day or

CH. II Gil Blas' alarm on his road to Pegnaflor; his adventures on his arrival in that town; and the character of the men with whom he supped. 17

other Spain will be as proud of numbering you among her rare productions, as Greece of having given birth

to her seven wise men. This fine speech was followed as before; and I really began to think that with all my

classical honours I should at last be doomed to share the fate of Antaeus. If I had been master of ever so little

experience, I should not have been the dupe of his rhodomontade. I must have discovered him by his

outrageous compliments, to be one of those parasites who swarm in every town, and get into a stranger's

company on his arrival, to appease the wolf in their stomachs at his expense; but my youth and vanity

tempted me to draw a quite opposite conclusion. My admirer was very clever in my eyes, and I asked him to

supper on the strength of it. Oh! most willingly, cried be: with all my heart and soul. My fortunate star

predominates, now that I have the honour of being in company with the illustrious Gil Blas of Santillane, and

I shall certainly make the most of my good fortune as long as it lasts. My appetite is rather delicate, but I will

just sit down with you by way of being sociable, and if I can swallow a bit! only just not to look sulky; for we

These words were no sooner out of his mouth, than my panegyrist took his seat opposite to me. A cover was

laid for him in due form and order. First he fell on the omelet with as much perseverance as if he had not

tasted food for three whole days. By the complacency with which he eyed it I was morally certain the poor

pancake was at death's door. I therefore ordered its heir apparent to succeed; and the business was despatched

with such speed, that the second made its appearance on the table, just as we; no: I beg pardon; just

as he had taken the last lick of its predecessor. He pressed forward the main business, however, with a

diligence and activity proportioned to the importance of the object he had in view: so that he contrived to load

me with panegyric on panegyric, without losing a single stroke in the progress of mastication. Now all this

gave me no slender conceit of my pretty little self. When a man eats, he must drink. The first toast of course

was my health. The second, in common civility, was my father and mother, whose happiness in having such

an angel of a son, he could not sufficiently envy or admire. All this while he kept filling my glass, and

challenging me to keep pace with him. It was impossible to be backward in doing justice to such excellent

toasts and sentiments: the compliments with which they were seasoned did not come amiss; so that I got into

such a convivial mood, at observing our second omelet to disappear not insensibly, as just to ask the landlord

if he could not find us a little bit of fish. Master Corcuelo, who to all appearance played booty with the

parasite, told me he had an excellent trout; but those who eat him must pay for him. I am afraid he is meat for

your masters. Meat for our masters! exclaims my very humble servant in an angry tone of voice: that is more

than you know, my friend. Are you yet to learn that the best of your larder is not too good for the renowned

I was very glad that he took up the landlord's last expression; because if he had not, I should. I felt myself a

little hurt at it, and said to Corcuelo with some degree of hauteur: Produce this trout of yours, and I will take

the consequences. The landlord, who had got just what he wanted, set himself to work, and served it up in

high order. At the first glance of this third course I saw such pleasure sparkling in the parasite's eyes, as

proved him to be of a very complying temper; just as ready to do a kindness by the fish, as by those said eggs

of which he had given so good an account. But at last he was obliged to lay down his arms for fear of

accidents; as his magazine was crammed to the very throat. Having eat and drank his fill, he bethought him of

putting a finishing hand to the farce. Master Gil Blas, said he, as he rose from the table, I am too well pleased

with my princely entertainment to leave you without a word of advice, of which you seem to stand in much

need. From this time forward be on your guard against extravagant praise. Do not trust men till you know

them. You may meet with many another man, who, like me, may amuse himself at your expense, and perhaps

carry the joke a little further. But do not you be taken in a second time, to believe yourself; on the word of

such fellows, the eighth wonder of the world. With this sting in the tail of his farewell speech he very coolly

I was as much alive to so ridiculous a circumstance, as I have ever been in afterlife to the most severe

mortifications. I did not know how to reconcile myself to the idea of having been so egregiously taken in, or,

in fact, to lowering of my pride. So, so! quoth I, this rascal has been putting his tricks upon travellers, has he?

CH. II Gil Blas' alarm on his road to Pegnaflor; his adventures on his arrival in that town; and the character of the men with whom he supped. 18

Then he only wanted to pump my landlord! or more likely they were both in a story. Ah! my poor Gil Blas,

thou hadst better hide thy silly head! To have suffered such knaves as these to turn thee into ridicule! A pretty

story they will make of this! It is sure to travel back to Oviedo; and will give our friends a hopeful prospect of

thy success in life. The family will be quite delighted to think what a blessed harvest all their pious advice

has produced. There was no occasion to preach up morals to thee; for verily thou hast more of the dupe than

the sharper in thy composition. Ready to tear my eyes out or bite my fingers off from spite and vexation, I

locked myself up in my chamber and went to bed, but not to sleep; of which I had not got a wink when the

muleteer came to tell me, that he only waited for me to set out on his journey. I got up as expeditiously as I

could; and while I was dressing Corcuelo put in his appearance, with a little bill in his hand; a slight

memorandum of the trout! But paying through the nose was not the worst of it; for I had the vexation to

perceive, that while I was counting over the cost, this hangdog was chuckling at the recollection of the night

before. Having been fleeced most shamefully for a supper, which stuck in my stomach though I had scarcely

come in for a morsel of it, I joined the muleteer with my baggage, giving to as many devils as there are saints

I WAS not the only passenger. There were two young gentlemen of Pegnaflor; a little chorister of

Mondognedo, who was travelling about the country, and a young tradesman of Astorga, returning home from

Verco with his newmarried wife. We soon got acquainted, and exchanged the usual confidence of travellers,

telling one another whence we came and whither we were going. The bride was young enough; but so

darkcomplexioned, with so little of what a man likes to look at in a woman, that I did not think her worth

the trouble. But she had youth and a good crummy person on her side, and the muleteer, being rather less nice

in his taste, was resolved to try if he could not get into her good graces. This pretty project occupied his

ingenuity during the whole day; but he deferred the execution till we should get to Cacabelos, the last place

where we were to stop on the road. We alighted at an inn in the out skirts of the town, a quiet convenient

place, with a landlord who never troubled himself about other people's concerns. We were ushered into a

private room, and got our supper snugly: but just as the cloth was taken away in comes our carrier in a furious

passion: Death and the devil! I have been robbed. Here had I a hundred pistoles in my purse! But I will

have them back again. I am going for a magistrate; and those gentry will not take a joke upon such serious

subjects. You will all be put to the rack, unless you confess, and give back the money. The fellow played his

part very naturally, and burst out of the room, leaving us in a terrible fright.

We had none of us the least suspicion of the trick, and being all strangers, were afraid of one another. I

looked askance at the little chorister, and he, perhaps, had no better opinion of me. Besides, we were all a

pack of greenhorns, and were quite unacquainted with the routine of business on these occasions. We were

fools enough to believe that the torture would be the very first stage of our examination. With this dread upon

our spirits, we all made for the door. Some effected their escape into the street, others into the garden: but the

whole party preferred the discretion of running away to the valour of standing their ground. The young

tradesman of Astorga had as great an objection to bonetwisting as the rest of us: so he did as Eneas, and

many another good husband has done before him; ran away and left his wife behind. At that critical

moment the muleteer, as I was told afterwards, who had not half so much sense of decency as his own mules,

delighted at the success of his stratagem, began moving his motives to the citizen's wife: but this Lucrece of

the Asturias, borrowing the chastity of a saint from the ugliness of the devil who tempted her, defended her

sweet person tooth and nail; and showed she was in earnest about it by the noise she made. The patrol, who

happened to be passing by the inn at the time, and knew that the neighbourhood required a little looking after,

took the liberty of just asking the cause of the disturbance. The landlord, who was trying if he could not sing

in the kitchen louder than she could scream in the parlour, and swore he heard no music but his own, was at

last obliged to introduce the myrmidons of the police to the distressed lady, just in time to rescue her from the

CH. III. The muleteer's temptation on the road; its consequences, and the situation of Gil Blas between Scylla and Charybdis. 19

necessity of a surrender at discretion. The head officer, a coarse fellow, without an atom of feeling for the

tender passion, no sooner saw the game that was playing, than he gave the amorous muleteer five or six

blows with the butt end of his halberd, representing to him the indecency of his conduct in terms quite as

offensive to modesty as the naughty propensity which had called forth his virtuous indignation. Neither did

he stop here; but laid hold of the culprit, and carried plaintiff and defendant before the magistrate. The

former, with her charms all heightened by the discomposure of her dress, went eagerly to try their effect in

obtaining justice for the outrage they had sustained. His Worship heard at least one party; and after solemn

deliberation pronounced the offence to be of a most heinous nature. He ordered him to be stripped, and to

receive a competent number of lashes in his presence. The conclusion of the sentence was, that if the

Endymion of our Asturian Diana was not forthcoming the next day, a couple of guards should escort the

disconsolate goddess to the town of Astorga, at the expense of this muledriving Acteon.

For my part, being probably more terrified than the rest of the party, I got into the fields, scampering over

hedge and ditch, through enclosures and across commons, till I found myself hard by a forest. I was just

going for concealment to ensconce myself in the very heart of the thicket, when two men on horseback rode

across me, crying, Who goes there? As my alarm prevented me from giving them an immediate answer, they

came to close quarters, and holding each of them a pistol to my throat, required me to give an account of

myself; who I was, whence I came, what business I had in that forest, and above all, not to tell a lie about it.

Their rough interrogatives were, according to my notion, little better than the rack with which our friend the

muleteer had offered to treat us. I represented myself however as a young man on my way from Oviedo to

Salamanca; told the story of our late fright, and faithfully attributed my running away in such a hurry to the

dread of a worse exercise under the torture. They burst into an immoderate fit of laughter at my simplicity;

and one of them said: Take heart, my little friend; come along with us, and do not be afraid; we will put you

in a place where the devil shall not find you. At these words, he took me up behind him, and we darted into

I did not know what to think of this odd meeting; yet on the whole I could not well be worse off than before.

If these gentry, thought I to myself, had been thieves, they would have robbed, and perhaps murdered me.

Depend on it, they are a couple of good honest country gentlemen in this neighbourhood, who, seeing me

frightened, have taken compassion on me, and mean to carry me home with them and make me comfortable.

But these visions did not last long. After turning and winding backward and forward in deep silence, we

found ourselves at the foot of a hill, where we dismounted. This is our abode, said one of these sequestered

gentlemen. I looked about in all directions, but the deuce a bit of either house or cottage: not a vestige of

human habitation! The two men in the mean time raised a great wooden trap, covered with earth and briars, to

conceal the entrance of a long shelving passage underground, to which from habits the poor beasts took very

kindly of their own accord. Their masters kept tight hold of me, and let the trap down after them. Thus was

the worthy nephew of my uncle Perez caught, just for all the world as you would catch a rat.

I NOW knew into what company I had fallen; and I leave it to any one to judge whether the discovery must

not have rid me of my former fear. A dread more mighty and more just now seized my faculties. Money and

life, all given up for lost! With the air of a victim on his passage to the altar did I walk, more dead than alive,

between my two conductors, who finding that I trembled, frightened me so much the more by telling me not

to be afraid. When we had gone two hundred paces, winding down a declivity all the way, we got into a

stable lighted by two large iron lamps suspended from the vault above. There was a good store of straw, and

several casks of hay and corn with room enough for twenty horses: but at that time there were only the two

which came with us. An old Negro, who seemed for his years in pretty good case, was tying them to the rack

We went out of the stable. By the melancholy light of some other lamps, which only served to dress up horror

in its native colours, we arrived at a kitchen where an old harridan was broiling some steaks on the coals, and

getting supper ready. The kitchen furniture was better than might be expected, and the pantry provided in a

very plentiful manner. The lady of the larder's picture is worth drawing. Considerably on the wrong side of

sixty! In her youth her hair had been of a fiery red; though she would have called it auburn. Time had

indeed given it the fairer tint of grey; but a lock of more youthful hue, interspersed at intervals, produced all

the variegated effect of the admired autumnal shades. To say nothing of an olive complexion, she had an

enormous chin turning up, an immense nose turning down, with a mouth in the middle, modestly retiring

inwards, to make room for its encroaching neighbours. Red eyes are no beauty in any animal but a ferret;

Here, dame Leonard, said one of the horsemen as he presented me to this angelic imp of darkness, we have

brought you a young lad. Then looking round, and observing me to be miserably pale, Pluck up your spirits,

my friend; you shall come to no harm. We want a scullion, and have met with you. You are a lucky dog! We

had a boy who died about a fortnight ago: you shall succeed to the preferment. He was rather too delicate for

his place. You seem a good stout fellow, and may live a week or two longer. We find you in bed and board,

coal and candle; but as for daylight, you will never see that again. Your leisure hours will pass off very

agreeably with Leonard, who is really a very good creature, and tolerably tenderhearted; you will have all

your little comforts about you. I flatter myself you have not got among beggars. At this moment the thief

seized a flambeau; and as I feared, "with zeal to destroy;" for he ordered me to follow him.

He took me into a cellar, where I saw a great number of bottles and earthen pots full of excellent wine. He

then made me cross several rooms. In some were pieces of cloth piled up; in others, stuffs and silks. As we

passed through I could not help casting a sheep's eye at the gold and silver plate peeping out of the different

cupboards. After that, I followed him into a great hall illuminated by three copper lustres, and serving as a

gallery between the other rooms. Here he put fresh questions to me; asking my name; why I left Oviedo;

and when I had satisfied his curiosity: Well, Gil Blas, said he, since your only motive for quitting your

native place was to get into something snug and eligible, to be sure you must have been born to good luck, or

you would not have fallen into our hands. I tell you once for all, you will live here on the fat of the land, and

may souse over head and ears in ready money. Besides, you are in a place of perfect safety. The officers of

the holy brotherhood might pass through the forest a hundred times without discovering our subterraneous

abode. The entrance is only known to myself and my comrades. You may perhaps ask how it came to be

contrived, without being perceived by the inhabitants in the neighbourhood. But you are to understand, my

friend, that it was made long ago, and is no work of ours. After the Moors had made themselves masters of

Granada, of Arragon, and nearly the whole of Spain, the Christians, rather than submit to the tyranny of

infidels, betook themselves to flight, and lay concealed in this country, in Biscay, and in the Asturias, whither

the brave Don Pelagio had withdrawn himself. They lived in a state of exile, on the mountains, or in the

woods, dispersed in little knots. Some took up their residences in natural caves, others in artificial dwellings

underground, like this we are in. In process of time, when by the blessing of Providence they had driven

their enemies out of Spain, they returned to the towns. From that time forth their retreats have served as a

rendezvous for the gentlemen of our profession. It is true that several of them have been discovered and

destroyed by the holy brotherhood: but there are some yet remaining; and, by great good luck, I have tenanted

this without paying any rent for it almost these fifteen years: Captain Rolando, at your service! I am the

JUST as Captain Rolando had finished his speech six new faces made their appearance in the hall; the

lieutenant and five privates returning home with their booty. They were hauling in two great baskets full of

CH. V. The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their pleasant conversation. 21

sugar, cinnamon, pepper, figs, almonds, and raisins. The lieutenant gave an account of their proceedings to

the captain, and told him they had taken these articles, as well as the sumptermule, from a grocer of

Benavento. An official report having thus been made to the primeminister, the grocer's contribution was

carried to account; and the next step was to regale after their labours. A large table was set out in the hall.

They sent me back to the kitchen, where dame Leonarda told me what I had to do. I made the best of a bad

bargain, finding the luck ran against me; and, swallowing my grievances, set myself to wait on my noble

I cleaned my plate, set out my sideboard, and brought up my wine. As soon as I announced dinner to be on

table, consisting of two good black peppery ragouts for the first course, this high and mighty company took

their seats. They fell too most voraciously. My place was to wait; and I handed about the glasses with so

butlerlike an air, as to be not a little complimented on my dexterity. The chief entertained them with a short

sketch of my story, and praised my parts. But I had recovered from my mania by this time, and could listen to

my own panegyric with the humility of an anchorite or the contempt of a philosopher. They all seemed to

take a liking to me, and to think I had dropped from the clouds on purpose to be their cupbearer. My

predecessor was a fool to me. Since his death, the illustrious Leonarda had the honour of presenting nectar to

these gods of the lower regions. But she was now degraded, and I had the felicity of being installed in her

office. Thus, old Hebe being a little the worse for wear, young Ganymede tripped up her heels. A substantial

joint of meat after the ragouts at length blunted the edge of their appetites. Eating and drinking went together:

so that they soon got into a merry pin, and made a roaring noise. Well done, my lads! All talkers and no

listeners. One begins a long story, another cuts a joke; here a fellow bawls, there a fellow sings; and they all

seem to be at cross purposes. At last Rolando, tired of a concert in which he could hardly hear the sound of

his own voice, let them know that he was maestro di capella, and brought them into better tune. Gentlemen,

said he, I have a question to put. Instead of stunning one another with this infernal din, had we not better

enjoy a little rational conversation? A thought is just come into my head. Since the happy day that united us

we have never had the curiosity to inquire into each other's pedigrees, or by what chain of circumstances we

were each of us led to embrace our present way of life. There would be no harm in knowing who and who are

together. Let us exchange confidence: we may find some amusement in it. The lieutenant and the rest, like

true heroes of romance, accepted the challenge with the utmost courtesy, and the captain told the first story to

the following effect: Gentlemen, you are to know that I am the only son of a rich citizen in Madrid. The

day of my birth was celebrated in the family by rejoicings without end. My father, no chicken, thought it a

considerable feat to have got an heir, and my mother was kind enough to suckle me herself. My maternal

grandfather was still living: a good old man, who did not trouble himself about other people's concerns, but

said his prayers, and fought his campaigns over and over again; for he had been in the army. Of course I was

idolized by these three persons; never out of their arms. My early years were passed in the most childish

amusements, for fear of hurting my health by application. It will not do, said my father, to hammer much

learning into children till time has ripened their understanding. While he waited for this ripening, the season

went by. I could neither read nor write: but I made up for that in other ways. My father taught me a thousand

different games. I became perfectly acquainted with cards, was no stranger to dice, and my grandfather set

me the example of drawing the long bow, while he entertained me with his military exploits. He sung the

same songs repeatedly one after another every day; so that when, after saying ten or twelve lines after him for

three months together, I got to boggle through them without missing, the whole family were in raptures at my

memory. Neither was my wit thought to be at all less extraordinary; for I was suffered to talk at random, and

took care to put in my oar in the most impertinent manner possible. O the pretty little dear! exclaimed my

father, as if he had been fascinated. My mother made it up with kisses, and my grandfather's old eyes

overflowed. I played all sorts of dirty and indecent tricks before them with impunity; everything was

excusable in so fine a boy: an angel could not do wrong. Going on in this manner, I was already in my twelfth

year without ever having a master. It was high time; but then he was to teach me by fair means: he might

threaten, but must not flog me. This arrangement did me but little good; for sometimes I laughed when my

tutor scolded: at others, I ran with tears in my eyes to my mother or my grandfather, and complained that he

had used me ill. The poor devil got nothing by denying it. My word was always taken before his, and he came

CH. V. The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their pleasant conversation. 22

off with the character of a cruel rascal. One day I scratched myself with my own nails, and set up a howl as if

I had been flogged. My mother ran, and turned the master out of doors, though he vowed and protested he

Thus did I get rid of all my tutors, till at last I met with one to my mind. He was a bachelor of Alcala. This

was the master for a young man of fashion. Women, wine, and gaming, were his principal amusements. It

was impossible to be in better hands. He hit the right nail on the head: for he let me do what I pleased, and

thus got into the good graces of the family, who abandoned me to his conduct. They had no reason to repent.

He perfected me betimes in the knowledge of the world. By dint of taking me about to all his haunts, he gave

such a finish to my education, that barring literature and science, I be came an universal scholar. As soon as

he saw that I could go alone in the high road to ruin he went to qualify others for the same journey. During

my childhood I had lived at home just as I liked, and did not sufficiently consider, that now I was beginning

to be responsible for my own actions. My father and mother were a standing jest. Yet they were themselves

thrown into convulsions at my sallies; and the more ridiculous they were made by them, the more waggish

they thought me. In the mean time I got into all manner of scrapes with some young fellows of my own

kidney; and, as our relations kept us rather too short of cash for the exigencies of so loose a life, we each of

us made free with whatever we could lay our hands on in our own families. Finding this would not raise the

supplies, we began to pick pockets in the streets at night. As ill luck would have it, our exploits came to the

knowledge of the police. A warrant was out against us; but some goodnatured friend, thinking it a pity we

should be nipped in the bud, gave us a caution. We took to our heels, and rose in our vocation to the rank of

highwaymen. From that time forth, gentlemen, with a blessing on my endeavours, I have gone on till I am

almost the father of the profession, in spite of the dangers to which it is exposed.

Here the captain ended, and it came to the turn of the lieutenant. Gentle men, extremes are said to meet;

and so it will appear from a comparison of our commander's education and mine. My father was a butcher at

Toledo. He passed, with reason, for the greatest brute in the town, and my mother's sweet disposition was not

mended by the example. In my childhood, they whipped me in emulation of one another; I came in for a

thousand lashes of a day! The slightest fault was followed up by the severest punishment. In vain did I beg

for mercy with tears in my eyes, and protest that I was sorry for what I had done. They never excused me, and

nine times out of ten flogged me for nothing. When I was under my father's lash, my mother, not thinking his

arm stout enough, lent her assistance, instead of begging me off. The favours I received at their hands gave

me such a disgust, that I quitted their house before I had completed my fourteenth year, took the Arragon

road, and begged my way to Saragossa. There I associated with vagrants, who led a merry life enough. They

taught me to counterfeit blindness and lameness, to dress up an artificial wound in each of my legs, and to

adopt many other methods of imposing on the credulity of the charitable and humane. In the morning, like

actors at rehearsal, we cast our characters, and settled the business of the comedy. We had each our exits and

our entrances; till in the evening the curtain dropped, and we regaled at the expense of the dupes we had

deluded in the day. Wearied, however, with the company of these wretches, and wishing to live in more

worshipful society, I entered into partnership with a gang of sharpers. These fellows taught me some good

tricks: but Saragossa soon became too hot to hold us, after we had fallen out with a limb of the law, who had

hitherto taken us under his protection. We each of us provided for ourselves, and left the devil to take the

hindmost. For my part, I enlisted in a brave and veteran regiment, which had seen abundance of service on

the king's highway: and I found myself so comfortable in their quarters, that I had no desire to change my

birth. So that you see, gentlemen, I was very much obliged to my relations for their bad behaviour; for if they

had treated me a little more kindly, I might have been a blackguard butcher at this moment, instead of having

the honour to be your lieutenant. Gentlemen, interrupted a hopeful young freebooter who sat between the

captain and the lieutenant, the stories we have just heard are neither so complicated nor so curious as

mine. I peeped into existence by means of a country woman in the neighbourhood of Seville. Three weeks

after she had set me down in this system, a nurse child was offered her. You are to understand she was yet in

her prime, comely in her person, and had a good breast of milk. The young suckling had noble blood in him,

and was an only son. My mother accepted the proposal with all her heart, and went to fetch the child. It was

CH. V. The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their pleasant conversation. 23

entrusted to her care. She had no sooner brought it home, than, fancying a resemblance, she conceived the

idea of substituting me for the brat of high birth, in the hope of drawing a handsome commission at some

future time for this motherly office in behalf of her infant. My father, whose morals were on a level with

those of clodhoppers in general, lent himself very willingly to the cheat: so that with only a change of clouts

the son of Don Rodrigo de Herrera was packed off in my name to another nurse, and my mother suckled her

They may say what they will of instinct and the force of blood! The little gentleman's parents were very

easily taken in. They had not the slightest suspicion of the trick; and were eternally dandling me till I was

seven years old. As it was their intention to make me a finished gentleman, they gave me masters of all kinds;

but I had very little taste for their lessons, and above all, I detested the sciences. I had at any time rather play

with the servants or the stable boys, and was a complete kitchen genius. But tossing up for heads or tails was

not my ruling passion. Before seventeen I had an itch for getting drunk. I played the devil among the

chambermaids; but my prime favourite was a kitchen girl, who had infinite merit in my eyes. She was a

great bloated horsegodmother, whose good case and easy morals suited me exactly. I boarded her with so

little circumspection that Don Rodrigo took notice of it. He took me to task pretty sharply; twitted me with

my low taste; and, for fear the presence of my charmer should counteract his sage counsels, showed the

This proceeding was rather offensive; and I determined to be even with him. I stole his wife's jewels; and

ravishing my Helen from a laundress of her acquaintance, went off with her in open day, that the transaction

might lose nothing in point of notoriety. But this was not all. I carried her among her relations, where I

married her according to the rites of the church, as much from the personal motive of mortifying Herrera, as

from the patriotic enthusiasm of encouraging our young nobility to mend the breed. Three months after

marriage, I heard that Don Rodrigo had gone the way of all flesh. The intelligence was not lost upon me. I

was at Seville in a twinkling, to administer in due form and order to his effects; but the tables were turned.

My mother had paid the debt of nature, and in her last agonies had been so much off her guard as to confess

the whole affair to the curate of the village and other competent witnesses. Don Rodrigo's son had already

taken my place, or rather his own, and his popularity was increased by the deficiency of mine; so that as the

trumps were all out in that hand, and I had no particular wish for the present my wife was likely to make me,

I joined issue with some desperate blades, with whom I began my trading ventures.

The young cutpurse having finished his story, another told us that he was the son of a merchant at Burgos;

that, in his youth, prompted more by piety than wit, he had taken the religious habit and professed in a very

strict order, and that a few years afterwards he had apostatized. In short, the eight robbers told their tale one

after another, and when I had heard them all, I did not wonder that the destinies had brought them together.

The conversation now took a different turn. They brought several schemes upon the carpet for the next

campaign; and after having laid down their plan of operations, rose from table and went to bed. They lighted

their night candles, and withdrew to their apartments. I attended Captain Rolando to his. While I was fiddling

about him as he undressed: Well! Gil Blas, said he, you see how we live! We are always merry; hatred and

envy have no footing here; we have not the least difference, but hang together just like monks. You are sure,

my good lad, to lead a pleasant life here; for I do not think you are fool enough to make any bones about

consorting with gentlemen of the road. In what does ours differ from many a more reputable trade? Depend

on it, my friend, all men love two hands in their neighbour's purse, though only one in their own. Men's

principles are all alike; the only difference lies in the mode of carrying them into effect. Conquerors, for

instance, make free with the territories of their neighbours. People of fashion borrow and do not pay.

Bankers, treasurers, brokers, clerks, and traders of all kinds, wholesale and retail, give ample liberty to their

wants to overdraw on their consciences. I shall not mention the hangerson of the law; we all know how it

goes with them. At the same time it must be allowed that they have more humanity than we have; for as it is

often our vocation to take away the life of the innocent for plunder, it is sometimes theirs for fee and reward

CH. V. The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their pleasant conversation. 24

AFTER the captain of the banditti had thus apologized for adopting such a line of life, he went to bed. For

my part, I returned to the hall, where I cleared the table, and set everything to rights. Then I went to the

kitchen, where Domingo, the old negro, and dame Leonarda had been expecting me at supper. Though

entirely without appetite, I had the good manners to sit down with them. Not a morsel could I eat; and, as I

scarcely felt more miserable than I looked, this pair so justly formed to meet by nature, undertook to give me

a little comfort. Why do you take on so, my good lad? said the old dowager: you ought rather to bless your

stars for your good luck. You are young, and seem a little soft; you would have a fine kettle of fish of it in the

busy world. You might have fallen into bad hands, and then your morals would have been corrupted; whereas

here your innocence is insured to its full value. Dame Leonarda is in the right, put in the old negro gravely,

the world is but a troublesome place. Be thankful, my friend, for being so early relieved from the dangers, the

I bore this prosing very quietly, because I should have got no good by putting myself in a passion about it. At

length Domingo, after playing a good knife and fork, and getting gloriously muddled, took himself off to the

stable. Leonarda, by the glimmering of a lamp, showed me the way to a vault which served as a last home to

those of the corps who died a natural death. Here I stumbled upon something more like a grave than a bed.

This is your room, said she. Your predecessor lay here as long as he was among us, and here he lies to this

day. He suffered himself to be hurried out of life in his prime: do not you be so foolish as to follow his

example. With this kind advice, she left me with the lamp for my companion and returned to the kitchen. I

threw myself on the little bed, not so much for rest as meditation. O heaven! exclaimed I, was there ever a

fate so dreadful as mine? it is determined then I am to take my leave of daylight! Beside this, as if it were not

enough to be buried alive at eighteen, my misery is to be aggravated by being in the service of a banditti; by

passing the day with highwaymen, and the night in a charnelhouse. These reflections, which seemed to me

very dismal, and were indeed no better than they seemed, set me crying most bitterly. I could not conceive

what cursed maggot my uncle had got in his head to send me to Salamanca; repented running away from

Cacabelos, and would have compounded for the torture. But, considering how vain it was to shut the door

when the steed was stolen, I determined, instead of lamenting the past, to hit upon some expedient for making

my escape. What! thought I, is it impossible to get off? The cutthroats are asleep; cooky and the black will

be snoring ere long. Why cannot I, by the help of this lamp, find the passage by which I descended into these

infernal regions? I am afraid, indeed, my strength is not equal to lifting the trap at the entrance. However, let

us see. Faint heart never won fair lady. Despair will lend me new force, and who knows but I may succeed?

Thus was the train laid for a grand attempt. I got up as soon as Leonarda and Domingo were likely to be

asleep. With the lamp in my hand, I stole out of the vault, putting up my prayers to all the spirits in paradise,

and ten miles round. It was with no small difficulty that I threaded all the windings of this new labyrinth. At

length I found myself at the stable door, and perceived the passage which was the object of my search.

Pushing on I made my way towards the trap with a light pair of heels and a beating heart: but, alas! in the

middle of my career I ran against a cursed iron grate locked fast, with bars so close as not to admit a hand

between them. I looked rather foolish at the occurrence of this new difficulty, which I had not been aware of

at my entrance, because the grate was then open. However, I tried what I could do by fumbling at the bars.

Then for a peep at the lock; or whether it could not be forced! When all at once my poor shoulders were

saluted with five or six good strokes of a bull's pizzle. I set up such a shrill alarum, that the den of Cacus rang

with it; when looking round, who should it be but the old negro in his shirt, holding a dark lanthorn in one

hand, and the instrument of my punishment in the other. Oh, ho! quoth he, my merry little fellow, you will

run away, will you? No, no! you must not think to set your wits against mine. I heard you all the while. You

thought you should find the grate open, did not you? You may take it for granted, my friend, that henceforth

it will always be shut. When we keep any one here against his will, he must be a cleverer fellow than you to

In the mean time, at the howl I had set up two or three of the robbers waked suddenly; and not knowing but

the holy brotherhood might be falling upon them, they got up and called their comrades. Without the loss of a

moment all were on the alert. Swords and carabines were put in requisition, and the whole posse advanced

forward almost in a state of nature to the place where I was parleying with Domingo. But as soon as they

learned the cause of the uproar, their alarm resolved itself into a peal of laughter. How now, Gil Blas, said the

apostate son of the church, you have not been a good six hours with us, and are you tired of our company

already? You must have a great objection to retirement. Why, what would you do if you were a Carthusian

friar? Get along with you, and go to bed. This time you shall get off with Domingo's discipline; but if you are

ever caught in a second attempt of the same kind, by Saint Bartholomew! we will flay you alive. With this

hint he retired, and the rest of the party went back to their rooms. The old negro, taking credit to himself for

his vigilance, returned to his stable; and I found my way back to my charnelhouse, where I passed the

FOR the first few days I thought I should have given up the ghost for very spite and vexation. The lingering

life I led was nearly akin to death itself; but in the end my good genius whispered me to play the hypocrite, I

aimed at looking a little more cheerful; began to laugh and sing, though it was some times on the wrong side

of my mouth; in a word, I put so good a face on the matter, that Leonarda and Domingo were completely

taken in. They thought the bird was reconciled to his cage. The robbers entertained the same notion. I looked

as brisk as the beverage I poured out, and put in my oar whenever I thought I could say a good thing. My

freedom, far from offending, was taken in good part. Gil Blas, quoth the captain one evening, while I was

playing the buffoon, you have done well, my friend, to banish melancholy. I am delighted with your wit and

humour. Some people wear a mask at first acquaintance; I had no notion what a jovial fellow you were.

My praises now seemed to run from mouth to mouth. They were all so partial to me, that, not to miss my

opportunity; Gentlemen, quoth I, allow me to tell you a piece of my mind. Since I have been your guest, a

new light breaks in upon me. I have bid adieu to vulgar prejudices, and caught a ray at the fountain of your

illumination. I feel that I was born to be your knight companion. I languish to make one among you, and will

stand my chance of a halter with the best. All the company cried Hear! I was considered as a promising

member of the senate. It was then determined unanimously to give me a trial in some inferior department;

afterwards to bespeak me a good desperate encounter in which I might show my prowess; and if I answered

It was necessary therefore to go on exhibiting a copy of my countenance, and doing my best in my office of

cupbearer. I was impatient beyond measure; for I only aspired after the honours of the sitting, to obtain the

liberty of going abroad with the rest; and I was in hopes that by running the risk of getting my neck into one

noose I might get it out of another. This was my only chance. The time nevertheless seemed long to wait, and

I kept my eye on Domingo, with the hope of outwitting him: but the thing was not feasible; he was always on

the watch. Orpheus as leader of the band, with a complete orchestra of performers as good as himself, could

not have soothed the savage breast of this Cerberus. The truth is, by the by, that for fear of exciting his

suspicion, I did not set my wits against him so much as I might have done. He was on the lookout, and I was

obliged to play the prude, or my virtue might have come into disgrace. I therefore stopped proceedings till the

time of my probation should expire, to which I looked forward with impatience, just as if I was waiting for a

Heaven be praised, in about six months I gained my end. The commandant Rolando addressing his regiment,

said: Comrades, we must stand upon honour with Gil Blas. I have no bad opinion of our young candidate; we

shall make something of him. If you will take my advice, let him go and reap his first harvest with us to

morrow on the king's highway. We will lead him on in the path of honour. The robbers applauded the

sentiments of the captain with a thunder of acclamation; and to show me how much I was considered as one

of the gang, from that moment they dispensed with my attendance at the side board. Dame Leonarda was

reinstated in the office from which she had been discharged to make room for me. They made me change my

dress, which consisted in a plain short cassock a good deal the worse for wear, and tricked me out in the

spoils of a gentleman lately robbed. After this inauguration, I made my arrangements for my first campaign.

IT was past midnight in the month of September, when I issued from the subterraneous abode as one of the

fraternity. I was armed, like them, with a carabine, two pistols, a sword, and a bayonet, and was mounted on a

very good horse, the property of the gentleman in whose costume I appeared. I had lived so long like a mole

underground, that the daybreak could not fail of dazzling me: but my eyes got reconciled to it by degrees.

We passed close by Pontferrada, and were determined to lie in ambush behind a small wood skirting the road

to Leon. There we were waiting for whatever fortune might please to throw in our way, when we espied a

Dominican friar, mounted, contrary to the rubric of those pious fathers, on a shabby mule. God be praised,

exclaimed the captain with a sneer, this is a noble beginning for Gil Blas. Let him go and trounce that monk:

we will bear witness to his qualifications. The connoisseurs were all of opinion that this commission suited

my talents to a hair, and exhorted me to do my best Gentlemen, quoth I, you shall have no reason to

complain. I will strip this holy father to his birthday suit, and give you complete right and title to his mule.

No, no, said Rolando, the beast would not be worth its fodder: only bring us our reverend pastor's purse; that

is all we require. Hereupon I issued from the wood and pushed up to the man of God, doing penance all the

time in my own breast for the sin I was committing. I could have liked to have turned my back upon my

fellows at that moment; but most of them had the advantage of better horses than mine: had they seen me

making off they would have been at my heels, and would soon have caught me, or perhaps would have fired a

volley, for which I was not sufficiently case hardened. I could not therefore venture on so perilous an

alternative; so that claiming acquaintance with the reverend father, I asked to look at his purse, and just put

out the end of a pistol. He stopped short to gaze upon me; and, without seeming much frightened, said, My

child, you are very young; this is an early apprenticeship to a bad trade. Father, replied I, bad as it is, I wish I

had begun it sooner. What! my son, rejoined the good friar, who did not understand the real meaning of what

I said, how say you? What blindness! give me leave to place before your eyes the unhappy condition. Come,

come, father! interrupted I, with impatience, a truce to your morality, if you please. My business on the high

road is not to hear sermons. Money makes my mare to go. Money said he, with a look of surprise; you have a

poor opinion of Spanish charity, if you think that people of my stamp have any occasion for such trash upon

their travels. Let me undeceive you. We are made welcome wherever we go, and pay for our board and

lodgings by our prayers. In short, we carry no cash with us on the road; but draw drafts upon Providence.

That is all very well, replied I; yet for fear your drafts should be dishonoured, you take care to keep about you

a little supply for present need. But come, father, let us make an end: my comrades in the wood are in a hurry;

so your money or your life. At these words, which I pronounced with a determined air, the friar began to

think the business grew serious. Since needs must, said he, there is wherewithal to satisfy your craving. A

word and a blow is the only rhetoric with you gentlemen. As he said this, be drew a large leathern purse from

under his gown, and threw it on the ground. I then told him he might make the best of his way: and he did not

wait for a second bidding, but stuck his heels into the mule, which, giving the lie to my opinion, for I thought

it on a par with my uncle's, set off at a good round pace. While he was riding for his life, I dismounted. The

purse was none of the lightest. I mounted again, and got back to the wood, where those nice. observers were

waiting with impatience to congratulate me on my success. I could hardly get my foot out of the stirrup, so

eager were they to shake hands with me. Courage, Gil Blas, said Rolando; you have done wonders. I have

had my eyes on you during your whole performance, and have watched your countenance. I have no

hesitation in predicting that you will become in time a very accomplished highwayman. The lieutenant and

the rest chimed in with the prophecy, and assured me that I could not fail of fulfilling it hereafter. I thanked

CH. VIII. Gil Blas goes out with the gang, and performs an exploit on the highway. 27

them for the elevated idea they had formed of my talents, and promised to do all in my power not to discredit

After they had lavished praises, the effect rather of their candour than of my merit, they took it into their

heads to examine the booty I had brought under my convoy. Let us see, said they, let us see how a friar's

purse is lined. It should be fat and flourishing, continued one of them, for these good fathers do not mortify

the flesh when they travel. The captain untied the purse, opened it, and took out two or three handfuls of little

copper coins, an AgnusDei here and there, and some scapularies. At sight of so novel a prize, all the

privates burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. God be praised! cried the lieutenant, we are very much

obliged to Gil Blas: his first attack has produced a supply, very seasonable to our fraternity. One joke brought

on another. These rascals, especially the fellow who had retired from the church to our subterraneous

hermitage, began to make themselves merry on the subject. They said a thousand good things, such as

showed at once the sharpness of their wits and the profligacy of their morals. They were all on the broad grin

except myself. It was impossible to be butt and marksman too. They each of them shot their bolt at me, and

the captain said: Faith, Gil Blas, I would advise you as a friend not to set your wit a second time against the

church: the biter may be bit; for you must live some time longer among us, before you are a match for them.

WE lounged about the wood for the greater part of the day, without lighting on any traveller to pay toll for

the friar. At length we were beginning to wear our homeward way, as if confining the feats of the day to this

laughable adventure, which furnished a plentiful fund of conversation, when we got intelligence of a carriage

on the road drawn by four mules. They were coming at a hard gallop, with three outriders, who seemed to be

well armed. Rolando ordered the troop to halt, and hold a council, the result of whose deliberations was to

attack the enemy. We were regularly drawn up in battlearray, and marched to meet the caravan. In spite of

the applause I had gained in the wood, I felt an oozing sort of tremour come over me, with a chill in my veins

and a chattering in my teeth that seemed to bode me no good. As it never rains but it pours, I was in the front

of the battle, hemmed in between the captain and the lieutenant, who had given me that post of honour, that I

might lose no time in learning to stand fire. Rolando, observing the low ebb of my animal spirits, looked

askew at me, and muttered in a tone more resolute than courtly: Hark ye! Gil Blas, look sharp about you! I

give you fair notice, that if you play the recreant, I shall lodge a couple of bullets in your brain. I believed

him as firmly as my catechism, and thought it high time not to neglect the hint; so that I was obliged to lay an

embargo on the expression of my fears, and to think only of recommending my soul to God in silence.

While all this was going on, the carriage and horsemen drew near. They suspected what sort of gentry we

were; and guessing our trade by our badge, stopped within gunshot. They had carabines and pistols as well

as ourselves. While they were preparing to give us a brisk reception, there jumped out of the coach a well

looking gentleman richly dressed. He mounted a led horse, and put himself at the head of his party. Though

they were but four against nine, for the coachman kept his seat on the box, they advanced towards us with a

confidence calculated to redouble my terror. Yet I did not forget, though trembling in every joint, to hold

myself in readiness for a shot: but, to give a candid relation of the affair, I blinked and looked the other way

in letting off my piece; so that from the harmlessness of my fire, I was sure not to have murder to answer for

I shall not give the particulars of the engagement; though present, I was no eyewitness; and my fear, while it

laid hold of my imagination, drew a veil over the anticipated horror of the sight. All I know about the matter

is, that after a grand discharge of musquetry, I heard my companions hallooing Victory! Victory! as if their

lungs were made of leather. At this shout the terror which had made a forcible entry on my senses was

ejected, and I beheld the four horse men stretched lifeless on the field of battle. On our side, we had only one

man killed. This was the renegade parson, who had now filled the measure of his apostasy, and paid for

jesting with scapularies and such sacred things. The lieutenant received a slight wound in the arm; but the

Master Rolando was the first at the coachdoor. Within was a lady of from four to fiveandtwenty,

beautiful as an angel in his eyes, in spite of her sad condition. She had fainted during the conflict, and her

swoon still continued. While he was fixed like a statue on her charms, the rest of were in profound meditation

on the plunder. We began by securing the horses of the defunct; for these animals, frightened at the report of

our pieces, had got to a little distance, after the loss of their riders. For the mules, they had not wagged a hair,

though the coachman had jumped from his box during the engagement to make his escape. We dismounted

for the purpose of unharnessing and loading them with some trunks tied before and behind the carriage. This

settled, the captain ordered the lady, who had not yet recovered her faculties, to be set on horseback before

the best mounted of the robbers; then, leaving the carriage and the uncased carcases by the roadside, we

THE night had another hour to run when we arrived at our subterraneous mansion. The first thing we did was

to lead our cavalry to the stable, where we were obliged to groom them ourselves, as the old negro had been

confined to his bed for three days, with a violent fit of the gout, and an universal rheumatism. He had no

member supple but his tongue; and that he employed in testifying his indignation by the most horrible

impieties. Leaving this wretch to curse and swear by himself, we went to the kitchen to look after the lady. So

successful were our attentions, that we succeeded in recovering her from her fit. But when she had once more

the use of her senses, and saw herself encompassed by strangers, she knew the extent of her misfortune, and

shuddered at the thought. All that grief and despair together could present, of images the most distressing,

appeared depicted in her eyes, which she lifted up to heaven, as if in reproach for the indignities she was

threatened with. Then, giving way at once to these dreadful apprehensions, she fell again into a swoon, her

eyelids closed once more, and the robbers thought that death was going to snatch from them their prey. The

captain, therefore, judging it more to the purpose to leave her to herself than to torment her with any more of

their assistance, ordered her to be laid on Leonarda's bed, and at all events to let nature take its course.

We went into the hall, where one of the robbers, who had been bred a surgeon, looked at the lieutenant's arm

and put a plaister to it. After this scientific operation, it was thought expedient to examine the baggage. Some

of the trunks were filled with laces and linen, others with various articles of wearing apparel: but the last

contained some bags of coin; a circumstance highly approved by the receiversgeneral of the estate. After

this investigation, the cook set out the sideboard, laid the cloth, and served up supper. Our conversation ran

first on the great victory we had achieved. On this subject said Rolando, directing himself to me, Confess the

truth, Gil Blas: you cannot deny that you were devilishly frightened. I candidly admitted the fact; but

promised to fight like a crusader after my second or third campaign. Hereupon all the company took my part,

alleging the sharpness of the action in my excuse, and that it was very well for a novice, not yet accustomed

We next talked of the mules and horses just added to our subterraneous stud. It was determined to set off the

next morning before daybreak, and sell them at Mansilla, before there was any chance of our expedition

having got wind. This resolution taken, we finished our supper, and returned to the kitchen to pay our

respects to the lady. We found her in the same condition. Nevertheless, though the dregs of life seemed

almost exhausted, some of these poachers could not help casting a wicked leer at her, and giving visible signs

of a motion within them, which would have broken out into overt act, had not Rolando put a spoke in their

wheel by representing that they ought at least to wait till the lady had got rid of her terrors and

squeamishness, and could come in for her share of the amusement. Their respect for the captain operated as a

check to the incontinence of their passions. Nothing else could have saved the lady; nor would death itself

CH. X. The lady's treatment from the robbers. The event of the great design, conceived by Gil Blas. 29

Again therefore did we leave this unhappy female to her melancholy fate. Rolando contented himself with

charging Leonarda to take care of her, and we all separated for the night. For my part, when I went to bed,

instead of courting sleep, my thoughts were wholly taken up with the lady's misfortunes. I had no doubt of

her being a woman of quality, and thought her lot on that account so much the more piteous. I could not paint

to myself, without shuddering, the horrors which awaited her; and felt myself as sensibly affected by them, as

if united to her by the ties of blood or friendship. At length, after having sufficiently bewailed her destiny, I

mused on the means of preserving her honour from its present danger, and myself from a longer abode in this

dungeon. I considered that the old negro could not stir, and recollected that since his illness the cook had the

key of the grate. That thought warmed my fancy, and gave birth to a project not to be hazarded lightly: the

I pretended to have the colic. A lad in the colic cannot help whining and groaning; but I went further, and

cried out lustily, as loud as my lungs would let me. This roused my gentle friends, and brought them about

me to know what the deuce was the matter. I informed them that I had a swinging fit of the gripes, and to

humour the idea, gnashed my teeth, made all manner of wry faces till I looked like a bedlamite, and twisted

my limbs as if I had been going to be delivered of a heathen oracle. Then I became calm all at once, as if my

pains had abated. The next minute I flounced up and down upon my bed, and threw my arms about at

random. In a word, I played my part so well that these more experienced performers, knowing as they were,

suffered themselves to be thrown off their guard, and to believe that my malady was real. All at once did they

busy themselves for my relief. One brought me a bottle of brandy, and forced me to gulp down half of it;

another, in spite of my remonstrances, applied oil of sweet almonds in a very offensive manner: a third went

and made a napkin burning hot, to be clapped upon my stomach. In vain did I cry mercy; they attributed my

noise to the violence of my disorder, and went on inflicting positive evil by way of remedy for that which was

artificial. At last, able to bear it no longer, I was obliged to swear that I was better, and entreat them to give

me quarter. They left off killing me with kindness, and I took care not to complain any more, for fear of

This scene lasted nearly three hours. After which the robbers, calculating it to be near daybreak, prepared

for their journey to Mansilla. I was for getting up, as if I had set my heart on being of the party; but that they

would not allow. No, no, Gil Blas, said Signor Rolando, stay here, my lad; your colic may return. You shall

go with us another time; today you are not in travelling condition. I did not think it prudent to urge my

attendance too much, for fear of being taken at my word; but only affected great disappointment with so

natural an air, that they all went off without the slightest misgiving of my design. After their departure, for

which I had prayed most fervently, I said to myself: Now is your time, Gil Blas, to be firm and resolved. Arm

yourself with courage to go through with an enterprise so propitiously begun. Domingo is tied by the leg, and

Leonarda may show her teeth, but she cannot bite. Pounce down upon opportunity while it offers; you may

wait long enough for another. Thus did I spirit myself up in soliloquy. Having got out of bed, I laid hold of

my sword and pistols; and away I went to the kitchen. But before I made my appearance I stopped to hear

what Leonarda was talking about to the fair incognita, who was come to her senses, and, on a view of her

misfortune in its extremity, took on most desperately. That is right, my girl, said the old hag, cry your eyes

out, sob away plentifully, you know the good effect of woman's tears. The sudden shock was too much for

you; but the danger is over now the engines can play. Your grief will abate by little and little, and you wilt get

reconciled to living with our gentlemen, who are very good sort of people. You will be better off than a

princess. You do not know how fond they will be of you. Not a day will pass without your being obliged to

I did not allow Leonarda time to go on any longer with this babbling. In I went, and putting a pistol to her

breast, insisted with a menacing air on her delivering up the key of the grate. She did not know what to make

of my behaviour; and, though almost in the last stage of life, had such a propensity to linger on the road as

CH. X. The lady's treatment from the robbers. The event of the great design, conceived by Gil Blas. 30

not to venture on a refusal. With the key in my hand I directed the following speech to the distressed object of

my compassion: Madam, Heaven sends you a deliverer in me; follow, and I will see you safe whithersoever

you wish to be conducted. The lady was not deaf to my proposal, which made such an impression on her

grateful heart that she jumped up with all the strength she had left, threw herself at my feet, and conjured me

to save her honour. I raised her from the ground, and assured her she might rely on me. I then took some

ropes which were opportunely in the kitchen, and with her assistance tied Leonarda to the legs of a large

table, protesting that I would kill her if she only breathed a murmur. After that, lighting a candle, I went with

the incognita to the treasury, where I filled my pockets with pistoles, single and double, as full as they could

hold. To encourage the lady not to be scrupulous, I begged she would think herself at home, and make free

with her own. With our finances thus recruited, we went towards the stable, where I marched in with my

pistols cocked. I was of opinion that the old blackamoor, for all his gout and rheumatism, would not let me

saddle and bridle my horse peaceably, and my resolution was to put a finishing hand to all his ailments if he

took it into his head to play the churl: but, by good luck, he was at that moment in such pain that I stole the

steed without his perceiving that the door was open. The lady in the mean time was waiting for me. We were

not long in threading the passage leading to the outlet; but reached the grate, opened it, and at last got to the

trap. Much ado there was to lift it, which we could not have done, but for the new strength we borrowed from

Day was beginning to dawn when we emerged from that abyss. Our first object was to get as far from it as

possible. I jumped into the saddle: the lady got up behind me, and taking the first path that offered, we soon

gal loped out of the forest. Coming to some crossroads we took our chance. I trembled for fear of its leading

to Mansilla, and our encountering Rolando and his comrades. Luckily my apprehensions were unfounded.

We got to Astorga by two o'clock in the afternoon. The people looked at us as if they had never seen such a

sight before as a woman riding behind a man. We alighted at the first inn. I immediately ordered a partridge

and a young rabbit to the spit. While my orders were in a train of execution, the lady was shown to a room,

where we began to scrape acquaintance with one another; which we had not done on the road, on account of

the speed we made. She expressed a high sense of my services, and told me that after so gentlemanly a

conduct, she could not allow herself to think me one of the gang from whom I had rescued her. I told her my

story to confirm her good opinion. By these means I entitled myself to her confidence, and to the knowledge

I WAS born at Valladolid, and am called Donna Mencia de Mosquera. My father, Don Martin, after spending

most of his family estate in the service, was killed in Portugal at the head of his regiment. He left me so little

property, that I was a bad match, though an only daughter. I was not, however, without my admirers,

notwithstanding the mediocrity of my fortune. Several of the most considerable cavaliers in Spain sought me

in marriage. My favourite was Don Alvar de Mello. It is true he had a prettier person than his rivals; but more

solid qualities determined me in his favour. He had wit, discretion, valour, probity; and in addition to all

these, an air of fashion. Was an entertainment to be given? His taste was sure to be displayed. If he appeared

in the lists, he always fixed the eyes of the beholders on his strength and dexterity. I singled him out from

A few days after our nuptials, he met Don Andrew de Ba�sa, who had been his rival, in a private place. They

attacked one another sword in hand, and Don Andrew fell. As he was nephew to the corregidor of Valladolid,

a turbulent man, violently incensed against the house of Mello, Don Alvar thought he could not soon enough

make his escape. He returned home speedily, and told me what had happened while his horse was getting

ready. My dear Mencia, said he at length, we must part. You know the corregidor: let us not flatter ourselves;

he will hunt me even to death. You are unacquainted with his influence; this empire will be too hot to hold

me. He was so penetrated by his own grief and mine as not to be able to articulate further. I made him take

some cash and jewels: then he folded me in his arms, and we did nothing but mingle our sighs and tears for a

quarter of an hour. In a short time the horse was at the door. He tore himself from me, and left me in a

condition not easily to be expressed. It had been well if the excess of my affliction had destroyed me! How

much pain and trouble might I have escaped by death! Some hours after Don Alvar was gone, the corregidor

became acquainted with his flight. He set up a hue and cry after him, sparing no pains to get him into his

power. My husband, however, eluded his pursuit, and got into safe quarters; so that the judge, finding himself

reduced to confine his vengeance to the poor satisfaction of confiscating, where he meant to execute,

laboured to good purpose in his vocation. Don Alvar's little property all went to the hammer.

I remained in a very comfortless situation, with scarcely the means of subsistence. A retired life was best

suited to my circumstances, with a single female servant. I passed my hours in lamenting, not an indigence,

which I bore patiently, but the absence of a beloved husband, of whom I received no accounts. He had indeed

pledged himself, in the melancholy moments of our parting, to be punctual in acquainting me with his

destiny, to whatever part of the world his evil star might conduct him. And yet seven years roiled on without

my hearing of him. My suspense respecting his fate afflicted me most deeply. At last I heard of his falling in

battle, under the Portuguese banner, in the kingdom of Fez. A man newly returned from Africa brought me

the account, with the assurance that he had been well acquainted with Don Alvar de Mello; had served with

him in the army, and had seen him drop in the action. To this narrative of facts he added several collateral

About this time Don Ambrosio Mesia Carillo, Marquis de la Guardia, arrived at Valladolid. He was one of

those elderly noblemen who, with that good breeding acquired by long experience in courts, throw their years

into the background, and retain the faculty of making themselves agreeable to our sex. One day he happened

by accident to hear the story of Don Alvar; and, from the part I bore in it and the description of my person,

there arose a desire of being better acquainted. To satisfy his curiosity, he made interest with one of my

relations to invite me to her house. The gentleman was one of the party. This first interview made not the less

impression on his heart for the traces of sorrow which were too obvious on my countenance. He was touched

by its melancholy and languishing expression, which gave him a favourable forecast of my constancy.

Respect, rather than any warmer sentiment, might perhaps be the inspirer of his wishes. For he told me more

than once what a miracle of good faith he considered me, and my husband's fate as enviable in this respect,

however lamentable in others. In a word, he was struck with me at first sight, and did not wait for a review of

The intervention of my kinswoman was adopted as the means of inducing me to accept his proposal. She paid

me a visit; and in the course of conversation, pleaded, that as my husband had submitted to the decree of

Providence in the kingdom of Fez, according to very credible accounts, it was no longer rational to coop up

my charms. I had shed tears enough over a man to whom I had been united but for a few moments as it were,

and I ought to avail myself of the present offer, and had nothing to do but to step into happiness at once. In

furtherance of these arguments, she set forth the old marquis's pedigree, his wealth, and high character: but in

vain did her eloquence expatiate on his endowments, for I was not to be moved. Not that my mind misgave

me respecting Don Alvar's death; nor that the apprehension of his sudden and unwelcome appearance

hereafter, checked my inclinations. My little liking, or rather my extreme repugnance, to a second marriage,

after the sad issue of the first, was the sole obstacle opposed to my relation's urgency. Neither was she

disheartened: on the contrary, her zeal for Don Ambrosio resorted to endless stratagems. All my family were

pressed into the old lord's service. So beneficial a match was not to be trifled with! They were eternally

besetting, dunning, and tormenting me. In fact, my despondency, which increased from day to day,

As there was no getting rid of him, I gave way to their eager suit, and was wedded to the Marquis de la

Guardia. The day after the nuptials, we went to a very fine castle of his near Burgos, between Grajal and

Rodillas. He conceived a violent love for me: the desire of pleasing was visible in all his actions: the

anticipation of my slenderest wishes was his earliest and his latest study. No husband ever regarded his wife

more tenderly, no lover could pour forth more devotion to his mistress. Nor would it have been possible for

me to steel my heart against a return of passion, though our ages were so disproportioned, had not every soft

sentiment been buried in Don Alvar's grave. But the avenues of a constant heart are barred against a second

inmate. The memory of my first husband threw a damp on all the kind efforts of the second. Mere gratitude

Such was my temper of mind, when, taking the air one day at a window in my apartment, I perceived a

peasantlooking man in the garden, viewing me with fixed attention. He appeared to be a common labourer.

The circumstance soon passed out of my thoughts; but the next day, having again taken my station at the

window, I saw him on the selfsame spot, and again found myself the object of his eager gaze. This seemed

strange! I looked at him in my turn; and, after an attentive scrutiny, thought I could trace the features of the

unhappy Don Alvar. This seeming visit from the tombs roused all the dormant agony of my soul, and

extorted from me a piercing scream. Happily, I was then alone with In�s, who of all my women engaged the

largest share of my confidence. I told her what surmise had so agitated my spirits. She only laughed at the

idea, and took it for granted that a slight resemblance had imposed on my fancy. Take courage, madam, said

she, and do not be afraid of seeing your first husband. What likelihood is there of his being here in the

disguise of a peasant? Is it even within the reach of credibility that he is yet alive? However, I will go down

into the garden, and talk with this rustic. I will answer for finding out who be is, and will return in all possible

haste with my intelligence. In�s ran on her errand like a lapwing; but soon returned to my apartment with a

face of mingled astonishment and emotion. Madam, exclaimed she, your conjecture is but too well grounded;

it is indeed Don Alvar whom you have seen; he made himself known at once, and pleads for a private

As I had the means of admitting Don Alvar instantaneously, by the absence of the Marquis at Burgos, I

commissioned my waitingmaid to introduce him into my closet by a private staircase. Well may you

imagine the hurry and agitation of my spirits. How could I support the presence of a man, who was entitled to

overwhelm me with reproaches? I fainted at his very footfall as he entered. They were about me in a

moment he as well as In�s; and when they had recovered me from my swoon, Don Alvar said Madam,

for heaven's sake, compose yourself. My presence shall never be the cause of pain to you; nor would I for the

world expose you to the slightest anxiety. I am no savage husband, come to account with you for a sacred

pledge; nor do I impute to criminal motives the second contract you have formed. I am well aware that it was

owing to the importunity of your friends; your persecutions from that quarter are not unknown to me.

Besides, the report of my death was current in Valladolid; and you had so much the more reason to give it

credit, as no letter from me gave you any assurance to the contrary. In short, I am no stranger to your habits

of life since our cruel separation; and know that necessity, not lightness of heart, has thrown you into the

arms Ah! sir, interrupted I with sobs, why will you make excuses for your unworthy wife? She is guilty, since

you survive. Why am I not still in the forlorn state in which I languished before my marriage with Don

Ambrosio? Fatal nuptials! alas! but for these, I should at least have had the consolation in my

My dear Mencia, replied Don Alvar, with a look which marked how deeply he was penetrated by my

contrition, I make no complaint of you; and far from upbraiding you with your present prosperity, as heaven

is my witness, I return it thanks for the favours it has showered on you. Since the sad day of my departure

from Valladolid, my own fate has ever been adverse. My life has been but a tissue of misfortune; and, as a

surcharge of evil destiny, I had no means of letting you hear from me. Too secure in your affection, I could

neither think nor dream but of the condition to which my fatal love might have reduced you. Donna Mencia

in tears was the lovely, but killing spectre that haunted me; of all my miseries, your dear idea was the most

acute. Some times, I own, I felt remorse for the transporting crime of having pleased you. I wished you had

lent an ear to the suit of some happier rival, since the preference with which you had honoured me was to fall

so cruelly on your own head. To cut short my melancholy tale after seven years of suffering, more

enamoured than ever, I determined to see you once again. The impulse was not to be resisted; and the

expiration of a long slavery having furnished me with the power of giving way to it, I have been at Valladolid

under this disguise at the hazard of a discovery. There, I learned the whole story. I then came to this castle,

and found the means of admission into the gardener's service, who has engaged me as a labourer. Such was

my stratagem to obtain this private interview. But do not suppose me capable of blasting, by my continuance

here, the happiness of your future days. I love you better than my own life; I have no consideration but for

your repose; and it is my purpose, after thus unburdening my heart, to finish in exile the sacrifice of an

existence which has lost its value since no longer to be devoted to your service.

No, Don Alvar, no, exclaimed I at these words; you shall never quit me a second time. I will be the

companion of your wanderings; and death only shall divide us from this hour. Take my advice, replied he,

live with Don Ambrosio; unite not yourself with my miseries, but leave me to stand under their undivided

weight. These and other such entreaties he used; but the more willing he seemed to sacrifice himself to my

welfare, the less did I feel disposed to take advantage of his generosity. When he saw me resolute in my

determination to follow him, he all at once changed his tone; and assuming an aspect of more satisfaction,

Madam, said he, since you still love Don Alvar well enough to prefer adversity with him before your present

ease and affluence, let us then take up our abode at Betancos, in the interior of Galicia. There I have a safe

retreat. Though my misfortunes may have stripped me of all my effects, they have not alienated all my

friends; some are yet faithful, and have furnished me with the means of carrying you off. With their help I

have hired a carriage at Zamora; have bought mules and horses, and am accompanied by perhaps the three

boldest of the Galicians. They are armed with carabines and pistols, waiting my orders at the village of

Rodillas. Let us avail ourselves of Don Ambrosio's absence. I will send the carriage to the castle gate, and we

will set out without loss of time. I consented. Don Alvar flew towards Rodillas, and shortly returned with his

escort. My women, from the midst of whom I was carried off, not knowing what to think of this violent

proceeding, made their escape in great terror. In�s only was in the secret; but she would not link her fate with

I got into the carriage, therefore, with Don Alvar, taking nothing with me but my clothes and some jewels of

my own before my second marriage; for I could not think of appropriating any presents of the Marquis. We

travelled in the direction of Galicia, without knowing if we should be lucky enough to reach it. We had

reason to fear Don Ambrosio's pursuit on his return, and that we should be overtaken by superior numbers.

We went forward for two days without any alarm, and in the hope of being equally fortunate the third, had

got into a very quiet conversation. Don Alvar was relating the melancholy adventure which had occasioned

the rumour of his death, and how he recovered his freedom, after five years of slavery, when yesterday we

met upon the Leon road the banditti you were with. He it was whom they killed with all his attendants, and it

DONNA MENCIA melted into tears as she finished this recital. I allowed her to give a free passage to her

sighs; I even wept myself for company, so natural is it to be interested for the afflicted, and especially for a

lovely female in distress. I was just going to ask her what she meant to do in the present conjuncture, and

possibly she was going to consult me on the same subject if our conversation had not been interrupted; but

we heard a great noise in the inn, which drew our attention whether we would or no. It was no less than the

arrival of the corregidor, attended by two alguazils and their marshalmen. They came into the room where we

were. A young gentleman in their train came first up to me, and began taking to pieces the different articles of

my dress. He had no occasion to examine them long. By Saint James, exclaimed he, this is my identical

doublet! It is the very thing, and as safely to be challenged as my horse. You may commit this spark on my

recognizance; he is one of the gang who have an undiscovered retreat in this country.

At this discourse, which gave me to understand my accuser to be the gentleman robbed, whose spoils to my

confusion were exclusively my own, I was without a word to say for myself, looking one way and the other,

and not knowing where to fix my eyes. The corregidor, whose office was suspicion, set me down for the

culprit; and, presuming on the lady for an accomplice, ordered us into separate custody. This magistrate was

none of your stem gallowspreaching fellows, he had a jocular epigrammatic sort of countenance. God

knows if his heart lay in the right place for all that! As soon as I was committed, in came he with his pack.

They knew their trade, and began by searching me. What a forfeit to these lords of the manor! At every

handful of pistoles, what little eyes did I see them make! The corregidor was absolutely out of his wits! It was

the best stroke within the memory of justice! My pretty lad, said his Worship with a softened tone, we only

do our duty, but do not you tremble for your bones before the time: you will not be broken on the wheel if

you do not deserve it. These bloodsuckers were emptying my pockets all the time with their cursed palaver,

and took from me what their betters of the shades below had the decency to leave my uncle's forty ducats.

They stuck at nothing! Their staunch fingers, with slow but certain scent, routed me out from top to toe; they

whisked me round and round, and stripped me even to the shame of modesty, for fear some sneaking portrait

of the king should slink between my shirt and skin. When they could sift me no further, the corregidor

thought it time to begin his examination. I told a plain tale. My deposition was taken down; and the sequel

was, that he carried in his train his bloodhounds, and my little property, leaving me to toss without a rag upon

Oh the miseries of human life! groaned I, when I found myself in this merciless and solitary condition. Our

adventures here are whimsical, and out of all time and tune. From my first outset from Oviedo, I had got into

a pleasant round of difficulties; hardly had I worked myself out of one danger, before I soused into another.

Coming into town here, how could I expect the honour of the corregidor's acquaintance? While thus

communing with my own thoughts, I got once more into the cursed doublet and the rest of the paraphernalia

which had got me into such a scrape; then plucking up a little courage, never mind, Gil Blas, thought I, do not

be chickenhearted. What is a prison above ground, after so brimstone a snuffle as thou hast had of the

regions below? But, alas! I hallo before I am out of the wood! I am in more experienced hands than those of

Leonarda and Domingo. My key will not open this grate! I might well say so, for a prisoner without money is

like a bird with its wings clipt; one must be in full feather to flutter out of distance from these gaolbirds.

But we left a partridge and a young rabbit on the spit! How they got off I know not; but my supper was a bit

of sallow complexioned bread, with a pitcher of water to render it amenable to mastication! and thus was I

destined to bite the bridle in my dungeon. A fortnight was pretty well without seeing a soul but my keeper,

who had orders that I should want for nothing in the bread and water way! Whenever he made his appearance

I was inclined to be sociable, and to parley a little to get rid of the blue devils; but this majestic minister was

above reply, he was mum! he scarcely trusted his eyes but to see that I did not slip by him. On the sixteenth

day, the corregidor strutted in to this tune You are a lucky fellow! I have news for you. The lady is packed

off for Burgos. She came under my examination before her departure, and her answers went to your

exculpation. You will be at large this very day if your carrier from Pegnaflor to Cacabelos agrees in the same

tale. He is now in Astorga. I have sent for him, and expect him here; if he confirms the story of the torture,

At these words I was ready to jump out of my skin for joy. The business was settled! I thanked the magistrate

for the abridgment of justice with which he had deigned to favour me, and was getting to the fag end of my

compliment, when the muleteer arrived, with an attendant before and behind. I knew the fellow's face; but he,

having as a matter of course sold my cloakbag with the contents, from a deeprooted affection to the money

which the sale had brought, swore lustily that he had no acquaintance with me, and had never seen me in the

whole course of his life. Oh! you villain, exclaimed I, go down on your knees and own that you have sold my

clothes. Prythee, have some regard to truth! Look in my face; am not I one of those shallow young fellows

whom you had the wit to threaten with the rack in the corporate town of Cacabelos? The muleteer turned

upon his toe, and protested he had not the honour of my acquaintance. As he persisted in his disavowal, I was

recommitted for further examination. Patience once more! It was only reducing feasts and fasts to the level of

bread and water, and regaling the only sense I had the means of using with the sight of my tonguetied

warden. But when I reflected how little innocence would avail to extricate me from the clutches of the law,

the thought was death; I panted for my subterraneous paradise. Take it for all in all, said I, there were fewer

grievances than in this dungeon. I was hail fellow well met with the banditti! I bandied about my jokes with

the best of them, and lived on the sweet hope of an escape; whereas my innocence here will only be a

WHILE I passed the hours in tickling my fancy with my own gay thoughts, my adventures, word for word, as

I had set my hand to them, were current about the town. The people wanted to make a show of me! One after

another, there they came, peeping in at a little window of my prison, not too capacious of daylight; and when

they had looked about them, off they went! This raree show was a novelty. Since my commitment, there had

not been a living creature at that window, which looked into a court where silence and horror kept guard. This

gave me to understand that I was become the towntalk, and I knew not whether to divine good or evil from

One of my first visitors was the little chorister of Mondognedo, who had a fellowfeeling with me for the

rack, and an equally light pair of heels. I knew him at once, and he had no qualms about acknowledging me

as an acquaintance. We exchanged a kind greeting, then compared notes since our separation. I was obliged

to relate my adventures in due form and order. The chorister, on his part, told me what had happened in the

inn at Cacabelos, between the muleteer and the bride, after we had taken to our heels in a panic. Then with a

friendly assurance at parting, he promised to leave no stone unturned for my release. His companions of mere

curiosity testified their pity for my misfortune; assuring me that they would lend a helping hand to the little

They were no worse than their word. The corregidor was applied to in my favour, who, no longer doubtful of

my innocence, above all when he had heard the chorister's story, came three weeks afterwards into my cell.

Gil Blas, said he, I never stand shilly shally: begone, you are free; you may take yourself off whenever you

please. But, tell me, if you were carried to the forest, could you not discover the subterraneous retreat? No,

sir, replied I: as I only entered in the night, and made my escape before daybreak, it would be impossible to

fix upon the spot. Thereupon the magistrate withdrew, assuring me that the gaoler should be ordered to give

me free egress. In fact, the very next moment the turnkey came into my dungeon, followed by one of his

outriding establishment with a bundle of clothes under his arm. They both of them stripped me with the

utmost solemnity, and without uttering a single syllable, of my doublet and breeches, which had the honour to

be made of a bettermost cloth almost new; then, having rigged me in an old frock, they shoved me out of their

The taking I was in to see myself so ill equipped, acted as a cooler to the usual transport of prisoners at

recovering their liberty. I was tempted to escape from the town without delay, that I might withdraw from the

gaze of the people, whose prying eyes I could not encounter but with pain. My gratitude, however, got the

better of my diffidence. I went to thank the little chorister, to whom I was so much obliged. He could not help

chuckling when he saw me. That is your trim, is it? said he. As far as I see, you cannot complain that your

case has not been sifted to the bottom. I have nothing to say against the laws of my country, replied I; they

are as just as need be. I only wish their officers would take after them! They might have spared me my suit of

clothes: I have paid for them over and over again. I am quite of your mind, rejoined he; but they would tell

you that these are little formalities of old standing, which cannot be dispensed with. What! you are foolish

enough to suppose, for instance, that your horse has been restored to its right owner? Not a word of it, if you

please: the beast is at this present in the stables of the register, where it has been impounded as a witness to be

brought into court: if the poor gentleman comes off with the crupper, he will be so much in pocket. But let us

CH. XIII. The lucky means by which Gil Blas escaped from prison, and his travels afterwards. 36

change the subject. What is your plan? What do you mean to do with yourself? I have an inclination, said I, to

take the road for Burgos. I may light on my rescued lady; she will give me a little ready cash: I shall then buy

a new short cassock, and betake myself to Salamanca, where I shall see what I can make of my Latin. All my

trouble is, how to get to Burgos: one must live on the road. I understand you, replied he. Take my purse: it is

rather thinly lined, to be sure; but you know a chorister's dividends are not like a bishop's. At the same time

he drew it from his pouch, and inserted it between my hands with so good a grace, that I could not do

otherwise than accept it, for want of a better. I thanked him as though he had made me a present of a gold

mine, and tendered him a thousand promises of recompense, to be duly honoured and punctually paid at

doom'sday. With this I left him, and skulked out of the town, not paying my respects to my other

The little chorister had reason for speaking modestly of his purse, it was not orthodox. By good luck, I had

been used for these two months to a very slender diet, and had still a little small change left when I reached

Ponte de Mula, not far from Burgos. I halted there to inquire after Donna Mencia. The hostess of the inn I put

up at was a little withered, spiteful, emaciated bit of mortality. I saw at a glance, by the mouths she made at

me aside, that my frock did not hit her fancy; and I thought it a proof of her taste. So I sat myself down at a

table; ate bread and cheese, and drank a few glasses of execrable wine, such as innkeepers technically call

cassecoquin. During this meal, which was of a piece with the outward appearance of the guest, I did my

utmost to come to closer quarters with my landlady. Did she know the Marquis de la Guardia? Was his castle

far out of town? Above all, what was become of my lady marchioness? You ask many questions in a breath,

replied she, bridling with disdain. But I got out of her, though by hard pumping, that Don Ambrosio's castle

After I had done eating and drinking, as it was night, I thought it natural to go to bed, and asked for my room.

A room for you! shrieked my landlady, darting at me a glance of contempt and pride; I have no rooms for

fellows who make their supper on a bit of cheese. All my beds are bespoke. There are people of fashion

expected, and our accommodations are all kept for them. But I will not be unchristian: you may lie in my

barn: I suppose your soft skin will not be incommoded by the feel of straw. She spoke truth without knowing

it. I took it all in silence, and slunk to my roostingplace, where I fell asleep like a man, the excess of whose

I WAS no sluggard, but got up the next morning betimes. I paid my bill to the landlady, who was already

stirring, and seemed a little less lofty and in better humour than the evening before; a circumstance I

attributed to the endeavours of three kind guardsmen belonging to the holy brotherhood. These gentlemen

had slept in the inn: they were evidently on a very intimate footing with the hostess: and doubtless it was for

I inquired in the town my way to the castle where I wanted to present my. self. By accident I made up to a

man not unlike my landlord at Pegnaflor. He was not satisfied with answering my question to the point; but

informed me that Don Ambrosio had been dead three weeks, and the marchioness his lady had taken the

resolution of retiring to a convent at Burgos, which he named. I proceeded immediately towards that town,

instead of taking the road to the castle, as I had first meant to do, and flew at once to the place of Donna

Mencia's retreat. I besought the attendant at the turningbox to tell that lady that a young man just discharged

from prison at Astorga wanted to speak with her. The nun went on the message immediately. On her return,

she showed me into a parlour, where I did not wait long before Don Ambrosio's widow appeared at the grate

You are welcome, said the lady. Four days ago I wrote to a person at Astorga, to pay you a visit as from me,

and to tell you to come and see me the moment you were released from prison. I had no doubt of your being

discharged shortly: what I told the corregidor in your exculpation was enough for that. An answer was

brought that you had been set at liberty, but that no one knew what was become of you. I was afraid of not

seeing you any more, and losing the pleasure of expressing my gratitude. Never mind, added she, observing

my confusion at making my appearance in so wretched a garb; your dress is of very little consequence. After

the important services you have rendered me, I should be the most ungrateful of my sex, if I were to do

nothing for you in return. I undertake, therefore, to better your condition: it is my duty, and the means are in

my power. My fortune is large enough to pay my debt of obligation to you, without putting myself to

You know, continued she, my story up to the time when we both were committed to prison. I will now tell

you what has happened to me since. When the corregidor at Astorga had sent me to Burgos, after having

heard from my own lips a faithful recital of my adventures, I presented myself at the castle of Ambrosio. My

return thither excited extreme surprise: but they told me that it was too late; the marquis, as if he had been

thunderstruck at my flight, fell sick; and the physicians despaired of his recovery. Here was a new incident in

the melancholy tragedy of my fate. Yet I ordered my arrival to be announced. The next moment I ran into his

chamber, and threw myself on my knees by his bedside, with a face running down with tears and a heart

oppressed with the most lively sorrow. Who sent for you hither? said he as soon as he saw me; are you come

to contemplate your own contrivance? Was it not enough to have deprived me of life? But was it necessary to

satisfy your heart's desire, to be an eyewitness of my death? My lord, replied I, In�s must have told you that

I fled with my first husband; and, had it not been for the sad accident which has taken him from me for ever,

you never would have seen me more. At the same time, I acquainted him that Don Alvar had been killed by

banditti, whose captive I had consequently been in a subterraneous dungeon. After relating the particulars of

my story to the end, Don Ambrosio held out to me his hand. It is enough, said he affectionately, I will make

no more complaints. Alas! Have I in fact any right to reproach you? You were thrown once more in the way

of a beloved husband; and gave me up to follow his fortunes: can I blame such an instance of your affection?

No, madam, it would have been vain to resist the will of fate. For that reason I gave orders not to pursue you.

In my rival himself I could not but respect the sacred rights with which he was invested, and even the impulse

of your flight seemed to have been communicated by some superior power. To close all with an act of justice,

and in the spirit of reconciliation, your return hither has reestablished you completely in my affection. Yes,

my dear Mencia, your presence fills me with joy: but, alas! I shall not long be sensible to it. I feel my last

hour to be at hand. No sooner are you restored to me, than I must bid you an eternal farewell. At these

touching expressions, my tears flowed in torrents. I felt and expressed as much affliction as the human heart

is capable of containing. I question whether Don Alvar's death, doting on him as I did, had cost me more

bitter lamentations. Don Ambrosio had given way to no mistaken presage of his death, which happened on

the following day; and I remained mistress of a considerable jointure, settled on me at our marriage. But I

shall take care to make no unworthy use of it. The world shall not see me, young as I still am, wantoning in

the arms of a third husband. Besides that such levity seems irreconcilable with the feelings of any but the

profligate of our sex, I will frankly own the relish of life to be extinct in me; so that I mean to end my days in

Such was Donna Mencia's discourse about her future plans. She then drew a purse from beneath her robe, and

put it into my hands, with this address: Here are a hundred ducats simply to furnish out your wardrobe. That

done, come and see me again. I mean not to confine my gratitude within such narrow bounds. I returned her a

thousand thanks, and promised solemnly not to quit Burgos, without taking leave of her. Having given this

pledge, which I had every inclination to redeem, I went to look out for some house of entertainment. Entering

the first I met with, I asked for a room. To parry the ill opinion my frock might convey of my finances, I told

the landlord that, however appearances might be against me, I could pay for my night's lodging as well as a

better dressed gentleman. At this speech, the landlord, whose name was Majuelo, a great banterer in a coarse

way, running over me with his eyes from top to toe, answered with a cool, sarcastic grin, that there was no

need of any such assurance; it was evident I should pay my way liberally, for he discovered something of

nobility through my disguise, and had no doubt but I was a gentle man in very easy circumstances. I saw

plainly that the rascal was laughing at me; and, to stop his humour before it became too convulsive, gave him

a little insight into the state of my purse. I went so far as to count over my ducats on a table before him, and

perceived my coin to have inclined him to a more respectful judgment. I begged the favour of him to send for

a tailor. A broker would be better, said he; he will bring all sorts of apparel, and you will be dressed up out of

hand. I approved of this advice, and determined to follow it; but, as the day was on the point of closing, I put

off my purchase till the morrow, and thought only of getting a good supper, to make amends for the miserable

THEY served me up a plentiful fricassee of sheep's trotters, almost the whole of which I demolished. My

drinking kept pace with my eating: and when I could stuff no longer, I went to bed. I lay comfortably enough,

and was in hopes that a sound sleep would have the kindness without delay to commit a friendly invasion on

my senses. But I could not close an eye for ruminating on the dress I should choose. What shall I do, thought

I? Shall I follow my first plan? Shall I buy a short cassock, and go to Salamanca to set up for a tutor? Why

should I adopt the costume of a licentiate? For the purpose of going into orders? Do I feel an inward call?

No? If I have any call, it is quite the contrary way. I had rather wear a sword than an apron: and push my

I made up my mind to take on myself the appearance of a gentleman. Waiting for the day with the greatest

impatience, its first dawn no sooner greeted my eyes, than I got up. I made such an uproar in the inn, as to

wake the most inveterate sleeper, and called the servants out of bed, who returned my salute with a volley of

curses. But they found themselves under a necessity of stirring, and I let them have no rest till they had sent

for a broker. The gentleman soon made his appearance, followed by two lads, each lugging in a great bundle

of green cloth. He accosted me very civilly, to the following effect: Honoured sir, you are a happy man to

have been recommended to me rather than any one else. I do not mean to give my brethren an ill word: God

forbid I should offer the slightest injury to their reputation! They have none to spare. But, between ourselves,

there is not one of them that has any bowels; they are more extortionate than the Israelites. There is not a

broker but myself that has any moral sense. I keep within the bounds of a reasonable profit. I am satisfied

with a pound in the penny; no, no! that is wrong: with a penny in the pound. Thanks to heaven, I

The broker, after this preface, which I, like a fool, took for chapter and verse, told his journeymen to undo

their bundles. They showed me suits of every colour in the rainbow, and exposed to sale a great choice of

plain cloths. These I threw aside with contempt, as thinking them too undrest; but they made me try on one

which fitted me as well as if I had been measured for it, and just hit my fancy, though it was a little the worse

for wear. It was a doublet with slashed sleeves, with breeches and a cloak, the whole of blue velvet with a

gold embroidery. I felt a little hankering after this particular article, and attempted to beat down the price. The

broker, who saw my inclination, told me I had a very correct taste. By all that is sacred! exclaimed he, it is

plain you are no younker. Take this with you! That dress was made for one of the first nobility in the

kingdom, and has not been on his back three times. Look at the velvet; feel it: nothing can be richer or of a

better colour; and for the embroidery, come now! tell truth: did you ever see better workmanship? What is the

price of it? said I. Only sixty ducats, replied he. I have refused the money, or else I am a liar. The alternative

could not fail in one proposition or the other. I bid five and forty: two or three and twenty would have been

nearer the mark. My worthy master, said the broker coolly, I never ask too much. I have but one price. But

here, added he, holding up the suits I had thrown aside; take these: I can afford to sell them a better bargain.

All this only inflamed my eagerness to buy what I was cheapening; and as I had no idea that he would have

made any abatement, I paid him down sixty ducats. When he saw how easily a fool and his money were

parted, I verily believe that in spite of the moral sense, he heartily repented not having taken a hint from the

CH. XV. Gil Blas dresses himself to more advantage, and receives a second present from the lady. His equipage on setting out from Burgos. 39

extortionate Israelite. But reconciling himself as well as he could to the small profit, to which he professed to

confine himself, of a pound upon a penny, he retreated with his journeymen. I was not suffered to forget that

I had now a cloak, a doublet, and a very decent pair of breeches. The rest of my wardrobe was to be thought

of: and this took up the whole morning. I bought some linen, a hat, silk stockings, shoes, and a sword; and

concluded by putting on my purchases. What pleasure was it to see myself so well accoutred! My eyes were

never cloyed, as it were, with the richness of my attire. Never did peacock look at his own plumage with less

philosophy. On that very day, I paid a second visit to Donna Mencia, who received me with her usual

affability. She thanked me over again for the service I had rendered her. On that subject, rapid was the

interchange of compliments. Then, wishing every kind of success, she bade me farewell, and withdrew,

without giving me anything but a ring worth thirty pistoles, which she begged me to keep as a remembrance.

I looked very foolish with my ring! I had reckoned on a much more considerable present. Thus, little satisfied

with the lady's bounty, I measured back my steps in a very musing attitude: but as I entered the inn door, a

man over took me, and throwing off his wrapping cloak, discovered a large bag under his arm. At the vision

of the bag, apparently full of current coin, I stood gaping as did most of the company present. The voice of

angel or archangel could not have been sweeter, than when this messenger of earthly dross, laying the bag

upon the table, said: Signor Gil Blas, the lady marchioness desires her compliments. I bowed the bearer out,

with an accumulation of fine speeches; and, as soon as his back was turned, pounced upon the bag, like a

hawk upon its quarry, and bore it between my talons to my chamber. I untied it without loss of time, and the

contents were; a thousand ducats! The landlord who had overheard the bearer, came in just as I had done

counting them, to know what was in the bag. The sight of my riches displayed upon a table, struck him in a

very forcible manner. What the devil! here is a sum of money! So, so! you are the man! pursued he with a

waggish sort of leer, you know how to tickle the fancies of the ladies! Four and twenty hours only

have you been in Burgos, and marchionesses, I warrant you, have surrendered at the first summons!

This discourse was not so much amiss. I was half inclined to leave Majuelo in his error; for it flattered my

vanity. I do not wonder young fellows are fond of passing for men of gallantry. But as yet the purity of my

morals was proof against the suggestions of my pride. I undeceived my landlord, by telling him Donna

Mencia's story, to which he listened very attentively. Afterwards I let him into the state of my affairs; and, as

he seemed to take an interest in them, besought him to assist me with his advice. He ruminated for some time;

then said with a serious air: Master Gil Blas, I have taken a liking to you; and since you are candid enough to

open your heart to me, I will tell you sincerely what I think would suit you best. You were evidently born for

a court life: I recommend you to go thither, and to get about the person of some considerable nobleman. But

make a point either of getting at his secrets, or administering to his pleasures; unless you do that, it will be all

lost time in his family. I know the great: they reckon nothing upon the zeal and attachment of a real friend;

but only care for pimping sycophants. You have, besides, another string to your bow. You are young, with an

attractive person: parts out of the question, for they are not at all times necessary, it is hard if you cannot turn

the head of some rich widow, or handsome wife with a broomstick for her husband. Love may ruin men of

fortune; but it makes amends by feathering the nests of those who have none. My vote, therefore, is for

Madrid: but you must not make your appearance there without an establishment. There, as elsewhere, people

judge by the outside; and you will only be respected according to the figure you make. I will find you a

servant, a tried domestic, a prudent lad; in a word, a fellow of my own creation. Buy a couple of mules; one

This counsel was too palatable to be refused. On the day following I purchased two fine mules, and bargained

with my new servant. He was a young man of thirty, of a very simple and godly appearance. He told me he

was a native of Galicia, by name Ambrose de Lamela. Other servants are selfish, and think they never can

have wages enough. This fellow assured me he was a man of few wants, and should be contented with

whatever I had the goodness to give him. I bought a pair of boots, with a portmanteau to lock up my linen and

CH. XV. Gil Blas dresses himself to more advantage, and receives a second present from the lady. His equipage on setting out from Burgos. 40

my money. Having settled with my landlord, I set out from Burgos the next morning before sun rise, on my

WE slept at Duengnas the first night, and reached Valladolid on the following day, about four o'clock in the

afternoon. We alighted at the inn of the most respectable appearance in the town. I left the care of the mules

to my fellow, and went up to a room whither I ordered my portmanteau to be carried by a waiter. As I felt a

little weary, I threw myself on a couch in my boots, and fell asleep involuntarily. It was almost night when I

awoke. I called for Ambrose. He was not to be found in the house; but made his appearance in a short time. I

asked him where he had been: he answered in his godly way, that he was just come from church, whither he

went for the purpose of thanksgiving, by reason that we had been graciously preserved from all perils and

dangers between Burgos and Valladolid. I commended his piety; and ordered a chicken to be roasted for

At the moment when I was giving this order, my landlord came into my room with a light in his hand. That

cursed candle served to introduce a lady, handsome, but not young, and very richly attired. She leant upon an

usher, none of the youngest, and a little blackamoor was her trainbearer. I was under no small surprise when

this fair incognita, with a profound obeisance, begged to know if my name might happen to be Signor Gil

Blas of Santillane? I had no sooner blundered out yes, than she released her sweet hand from the custody of

the usher, and embraced me with a transport of joy, of which I knew less and less what to make. Heaven be

praised, cried she, for all its mercies! You are he, noble sir, the very man of whom I was in quest. By this

introduction I was reminded of my friend the parasite at Pegnaflor, and was on the point of suspecting the

lady to be no better than an honest woman should be: but her finale gave me a much higher opinion of her. I

am, continued she, first cousin to Donna Mencia de Mosquera, whom you have so greatly befriended. It was

but this morning I received a letter from her. She writes me word that having learnt your intention of going to

Madrid, she wished me to receive you hospitably on your journey, if you went this way. For these two hours

have I been parading the town. From inn to inn have I gone to inform myself what strangers were in the

house; and I gathered from the landlord's description that you were most likely to have been my cousin's

deliverer. Since then I have found you out, you shall know by experience my gratitude to the friends of my

family, and especially to my dear cousin's hero. You will take up your abode, if you please, at my house.

Your accommodations will be better. I wished to excuse myself; and told the lady that I could not be so

troublesome: but her importunities were more than a match for my modesty. A carriage was waiting at the

door of the inn to convey us. She saw my portmanteau taken care of with her own eyes, because, as she justly

observed, there were a great many lightfingered gentry about Valladolid to be sure there were a great

many light fingered gentry about Valladolid, as she justly observed! In short, I got into the carriage with her

and the old usher, and suffered myself to be carried off bodily from the inn, to the great annoyance of the

landlord, who saw himself thus weaned from all the little perquisites he had reckoned on from my abode

Our carriage, having rolled on some distance, stopped. We alighted at the door of a handsome house, and

went upstairs into a wellfurnished apartment, illuminated by twenty or thirty wax candles. Several servants

were in waiting, of whom the lady inquired whether Don Raphael was come. They answered, No. She then

addressed herself to me: Signor Gil Blas, I am waiting for my brother's return from a country seat of ours,

about two leagues distant. What an agreeable surprise will it be to him to find a man under his roof to whom

our family is so much indebted! At the very moment she had finished this pretty speech we heard a noise, and

were informed at the same time that it was occasioned by the arrival of Don Raphael. This spark soon made

his appearance. He was a young man of portly figure and genteel manners. I am in ecstacy to see you back

again, brother, said the lady; you will assist me in doing the honours to Signor Gil Blas of Santillane. We can

never do enough to show our sense of his kindness to our kinswoman, Donna Mencia. Here, read this letter I

My dear Camilla, Signor Gil Blas of Santillane, the saviour of my honour and my life, has just set out for

court. He will of course pass through Valladolid. I conjure you by our family connection, and still more by

our indissoluble friendship, to give him an hospitable reception, and to detain him for some time as your

guest. I flatter myself that you will so far oblige me, and that my deliverer will receive every kind of polite

What! cried Don Raphael, casting his eyes again over the letter, is it to this gentleman my kinswoman owes

her honour and her life? Then heaven be praised for this happy meeting. With this sort of language, he

advanced to wards me; and squeezing me tightly in his arms: What joy to me is it, added he, to have the

honour of seeing Signor Gil Blas of Santillane! My cousin the marchioness had no need to press the

hospitality. Had she only told us simply that you were passing through Valladolid, that would have been

enough. My sister Camilla and I shall be at no loss how to conduct ourselves towards a young gentleman who

has conferred an obligation, not to be repaid, on her of all our family most tenderly beloved by us. I made the

best answer I could to these speeches, which were followed by many others of the same kind, and interlarded

with a thousand bows and scrapes. But Lord bless me, he has his boots on! The servants were ordered in, to

We next went into another room, where the cloth was lain. Down we sat at table, the brother, sister, and

myself. They paid me a hundred compliments during supper. Not a word escaped me, but they magnified it

into an admirable hit! It was impossible not to observe the assiduity with which they both helped me out of

every dish. Don Raphael often pledged me to Donna Mencia's health. I could not refuse the challenge; and it

looked a little as if Camilla, who was a very good companion, ogled at me with no questionable meaning. I

even thought I could perceive that she watched her opportunity, as if she was afraid of being detected by her

brother. An oracle could not have convinced me more firmly that the lady was caught; and I looked forward

to a little delicate amusement from the discovery, during the short time I was to stay at Valladolid. That hope

was my tempter to comply with the request they made me, of condescending to pass a few days with them.

They thanked me kindly for indulging them with my company; and Camilla's restrained, but visible transport,

Don Raphael, finding I had made up my mind to be his guest for a few days, proposed to take me to his

country house. The description of it was magnificent, and the round of amusements he meditated for me was

not to be described. At one time, said he, we will take the diversion of the chase, at another that of fishing;

and whenever you have a mind for a saunter, we have charming woods and gardens. In addition, we shall

have agreeable society. I flatter myself you will not find the time hang heavy on your hands. I accepted the

invitation, and it was agreed that we should go to this fine country house the following day. We rose from the

table with this pleasant scheme in our mouths. Don Raphael seemed in ecstacy. Signor Gil Blas, said he,

embracing me, I leave you with my sister. I am going presently to give the necessary orders, and send

invitations round to the families I wish to be of the party. With these words he sallied forth from the room

where we were sitting. I went on chatting with the lady, whose topics of discourse did not bely the glances of

her expressive eyes. She took me by the hand, and playing with my ring, You have a mighty pretty brilliant

there, said she, but it is small. Are you a judge of jewellery? I answered, no! I am sorry for that, resumed she,

because I was in hopes you could have told me what this is worth. As she uttered these words, she showed me

a large ruby on her finger; and, while I was looking at it, said An uncle of mine, who was governor of the

Spanish settlements in the Philippine isles, gave me this ruby. The jewellers at Valladolid value it at three

hundred pistoles. It cannot be worth less, said I, for it is evidently a very fine stone. Why, then, since you

have taken a fancy to it, replied she, an exchange is no robbery. In a twinkling she whisked off my ring, and

placed her own on my little finger. After this exchange, a genteel way enough of making a present, Camilla

pressed my hand and gazed at me with expressive tenderness; then, all at once breaking off the conversation,

wished me good night, and re tired to hide her blushes, as if she had been ready to sink at the indiscreet

No one hitherto had trod less in the paths of gallantry than myself! Yet I could not shut my eyes to the vista

vision opened to me by this precipitate retreat. Under these circumstances, a country excursion might have its

charms. Full of this flattering idea, and intoxicated with the prosperous condition of my affairs, I locked

myself into my bedroom, after having told my servant to call me betimes in the morning. Instead of going to

sleep, I gave myself up to the agreeable reflections which my portmanteau, snug upon the table, and my ruby

excited in my breast. Heaven be praised, thought I, though misfortunes have been my lot, I am unfortunate no

longer. A thousand ducats here, a ring of three hundred pistoles' value there! I am in cash for a considerable

time. In deed Majuelo was no flatterer, I see clearly. The ladies of Madrid will take fire like touchwood, since

the green sticks of Valladolid are so inflammable. Then the kind regards of the generous Camilla arrayed

themselves in all their charms, and I tasted by anticipation the amusements Don Raphael was preparing for

me at his villa. In the mean while, amid so many images of pleasure, sleep was on the watch to strew his

poppies on my couch. As soon as I felt myself drowsy, I undressed and went to bed.

The next morning, when I awoke, I found it rather late. It was odd enough that my servant did not make his

appearance, after such particular orders. Ambrose, thought I to myself, my devout Ambrose is either at

church, or abominably lazy this morning. But I soon let go this opinion of him to take up a worse; for getting

out of bed, and seeing no portmanteau, I suspected him to have stolen it during the night. To clear up my

suspicions, I opened my chamber door, and called the religious rascal over and over again. An old man

answered, saying What is your pleasure, sir? All your folks left my house before daybreak. Your house!

How now! exclaimed I; am I not under Don Raphael's roof? I do not know the gentleman, said he. You are in

a readyfurnished lodging, and I am the landlord. Yesterday evening, an hour before your arrival, the lady

who supped with you came hither, and engaged this suite of apartments for a nobleman of high rank,

travelling incognito, as she called it. She paid me beforehand. I was now in the secret. It was plain enough

what sort of people Camilla and Don Raphael were; and I conjectured that my servant, having wormed

himself into a complete knowledge of my concerns, had betrayed me to these impostors. Instead of blaming

myself for this sad accident, and considering that it could never have happened but for my indiscretion in so

unnecessarily betraying my confidence to Majuelo, I gave bad language to the poor harmless dame fortune,

and cursed my ill star in a hundred different formularies. The master of the readyfurnished lodging, to

whom I related the adventure, which perhaps was as much his as mine, showed some little outward sensibility

to my affliction. He lamented over me, and protested he was deeply mortified that such a play should have

been acted in his house; but I verily believe, not withstanding his fine words, that he had an equal share in the

cheat with mine host at Burgos, to whom I have never denied the merit of so ingenious an invention.

AFTER the first transports of my grief were over, I began to consider, that instead of giving way to remorse, I

ought rather to bear up against my ill fate. I summoned back my resolution, and, by way of comfort, said to

myself as I was dressing I am still in luck that the knaves have not carried off my clothes and what little

money I had in my pocket. I gave them some credit for being so considerate. They had even been generous

enough to leave me my boots, which I parted with to the landlord for a third of their cost. At last I sallied out

of the readyfurnished lodging, unencumbered, heaven be praised, with baggage or attendance. The first

thing I did was to go and see if my mules were still at the inn where we alighted the evening before. It was

not to be supposed that Ambrose would have neglected a due attention to them; and it would have been well

for me if I had always taken such exact measure of his character. I learned that he had not waited for the

morning, but had been careful to fetch them by overnight. Under the circumstances, satisfied I should never

CH. XVII. The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of the readyfurnished lodging. 43

see them again, any more than my portmanteau, I walked sulkily along the streets, musing on the future plans

I should adopt. I was tempted to go back to Burgos, and once more have recourse to Donna Mencia; but,

regarding this as an abuse of that lady's goodness, and being aware, moreover, what a fool I should look like,

I thought it best to forego that idea. I made a vow too for the future to be on my guard against women. I could

have sent the chaste Susanna to the house of correction. From time to time my ring caught my eye, it was a

present from Camilla! and I was ready to burst with anguish. Alas! thought I, I am no judge of jewellery, but

I shall be, by experience of these hucksters who exchange without a robbery. I need not go to a jeweller to be

Yet I did not neglect to know the truth respecting the value of my ring, and showed it to a lapidary, who rated

it at three ducats. At such an estimate, though as much as I expected, I made a formal surrender to the devil,

of the Philippine isles, the governor and his niece; or rather, I only restored his own subjects to their lawful

sovereign. As I was going out of the lapidary's shop a young fellow brushed by me, and on looking round,

made a full stop. I could not recollect his name at first, though his features were perfectly familiar to me.

How now, Gil Blas, said he, are you ashamed of an old acquaintance? or have two years so altered the son of

Nunez the barber, that you do not know him? Do not you recollect Fabricio, your townsman and

schoolfellow? How often have we kept, before Doctor Godinez, upon universals and metaphysics!

These words did not flow so fast as my recollection, and we embraced with mutual good will. Well, my

friend, resumed he, I am overjoyed to meet with you. Words fall short But how is this? Why, you look

like as heaven is my judge, you are dressed like a grandee! A gentleman's sword, silk stockings, a velvet

doublet and cloak, embroidered with silver! Plague take it! this is getting on in the world with a vengeance. I

will lay a wager you are in with some old monied harridan. You reckon without your host, said I, my affairs

are not so prosperous as you imagine. That will not do for me, replied he, I know better things; but you have a

mind to be close. And that fine ruby on your finger, master Gil Blas, whence comes that, if I may be so bold?

It comes, quoth I, from an infernal jade. Fabricio, my dear Fabricio, far from being point, quint, and quatorze

with the ladies of Valladolid, you are to know, my friend, that I am their complete bubble.

I uttered these last words so ruefully, that Fabricio saw plainly that some trick had been played upon me. He

was anxious to learn why I was out of humour with the lovely sex. I had no difficulty in satisfying his

curiosity; but as the story was a long one, and besides we had no mind to part in a hurry, we went into a

coffee house to be a little more at ease. There I recounted to him, during breakfast, all that had happened to

me since my departure from Oviedo. My adventures he thought whimsical enough; and testifying his

sympathy in my present uneasy circumstances, added We must make the best, my good lad, of all our

misfortunes in this life. Is a man of parts in distress? he waits patiently for better luck. Such an one, as Cicero

truly observes, never suffers himself to be humbled so low, as to forget that he is a man. For my own part,

that is just my character; in or out of favour there is no sinking me; I always float on the surface of illluck.

For example, I was in love with a girl of some family at Oviedo, and was beloved by her in return. I asked her

of her father in marriage, he refused. Many a young fellow would have died of grief; but no! mark my spirit, I

carried off the little baggage. She was lively, heedless, and coquettish: pleasure consequently was always

uppermost to the prejudice of duty. I took her with me for six months backwards and forwards about Galicia;

thence, adopting my taste for travelling, she had a mind to go to Portugal, but in other company more food

for despair. Yet I did not give in under the weight of this new affliction; but, improving on Menelaus, thought

myself much obliged to the Paris who had whispered in the ear of my Helen, for ridding me of a bad bargain;

I therefore determined to keep the peace. After that, not finding it convenient to return to the Asturias and

balance accounts with justice, I went forward into the kingdom of Leon, spending between one town and

another all the loose cash remaining from the rape of my Indian princess; for we had both of us birdlimed our

fingers at our departure from Oviedo. I got to Palencia with a solitary ducat, out of which I was obliged to

buy a pair of shoes. The remainder would not go far. My situation became rather perplexing. I began already

to be reduced to short allowance; something must be done. I resolved to go out to service. My first place was

with a woollendraper in a large way, whose son was a lad of wit and fashion; here was a complete antidote

CH. XVII. The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of the readyfurnished lodging. 44

to fasting, but then there was a little awkwardness. The father ordered me to dog the son, the son begged my

assistance in imposing on the father; it was necessary to take one side or other. Entreaties sound more musical

than commands, and my taste for music got me turned out of doors. The next service I entered into was with

an old painter, who undertook, as a matter of favour, to teach me the principles of his art; but he was so busy

in feeding me with knowledge, that he forgot to give me any meat. This neglect of substance for shadow

disgusted me with my abode at Palencia. I came to Valladolid, where, by the greatest good luck in the world,

I was hired by a governor of the hospital; I am with him still, and delighted with my quarters. My master,

Signor Manuel Ordonnez, is a man of profound piety. He always walks with his eyes cast downwards, and a

large rosary in his hand. They say that from his early youth, having been a close inspector of the poor, he has

interested himself in their affairs with unwearied zeal. Charity draws down a blessing on the charitable,

everything has prospered with him. What a favourite of heaven! The more he does for the poor, the richer he

As Fabricio was going on in this manner, I interrupted him. It is well you are satisfied with your lot; but,

between ourselves, surely you might play your part better in the world. Do not you believe it, Gil Blas,

replied he; be assured that for a man of my temper a more agreeable situation could not possibly have been

devised. The trade of a lacquey is toilsome, to be sure, for a poor creature; but for a lad of spirit it is all

enchantment. A superior genius, when he gets a service, does not go about it like a lumpish simpleton. He

enters into a family as viceroy over the master, not as an inferior minister. He begins by measuring the length

of his employer's foot; by lending himself to his weaknesses, he gains his confidence, and ends with leading

him by the nose. Such has been my plan of operation at the governor's. I knew the pilgrim at once by his

staff; his wish was for an earthly canonization. I pretended to believe him to be the saint he wished to be

taken for, hypocrisy costs nothing. Nay, I went further, for I took pattern by him; and playing the same part

before him which he played before others, I outcozened the cozener, and by degrees got to be majordomo.

I am in hopes some day or other, under his wing, to have the fingering of the poor box. It may bring a

blessing upon me as well as another; for I have caught the flame from him, and already feel deeply for the

These are fine hopes, my dear Fabricio, replied I; and I congratulate you upon them. For my part, I am

determined on my first plan. I shall straightway convert my embroidered suit into a cassock, repair to

Salamanca, and there, enlisting under the banner of the university, fulfil the sacred duties of a tutor. A fine

scheme! exclaimed Fabricio, a pleasant conceit! What madness, at your age, to turn pedant! Are you aware,

you stupid fellow, what you take upon yourself by that choice? As soon as you are settled, all the house will

be upon the watch, your most trivial actions will be minutely sifted. You will lead a life of incessant

constraint; you must set yourself off with a counterfeit outside, and affect to entertain a double set of the

cardinal virtues in your bosom. You will not have a moment to bestow on pleasure. The everlasting censor of

your pupil, your days will pass in teaching grammar and administering saintly reprehension, when he shall

say or do anything against decorum. After so much labour and confinement, what will be your reward? If the

little gentleman is a pickle, they will lay all the blame on your bad management; and you will be kicked out

of the family, it may be without your stipend. Do not tell me then of a tutor's employment; it is worse than a

cure of souls. But talk as much as you will about a lacquey's occupation, that is a sinecure, and pledges you to

nothing. Suppose one's master not to be immaculate? A servant of superior genius will flatter his vices, and

not unfrequently turn them to account. A footman lives at his ease in a good family. After having ate and

drank his fill, he goes to bed peaceably, without troubling himself who pays the bills.

I should never have done, my dear fellow, pursued he, were I to enumerate all the advantages of service.

Trust me, Gil Blas, discard for ever your foolish wish of being a tutor, and follow my example. So be it: but,

Fabricio, replied I, governors like yours are not to be met with every day; and if resolved to go to service, I

should like at least to get a good situation. Oh! you are in the right, said he, and that shall be my concern. I

will get you a comfortable place, if it were only to snatch a fine fellow from the jaws of the university.

CH. XVII. The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of the readyfurnished lodging. 45

The near approach of poverty with which I was threatened, and Fabricio's apparent good case, having more

weight with me than his arguments, I determined to wear a livery. On which we sallied forth from the tavern,

and my townsman said: I am going to introduce you to a man, to whom most of the servants resort when they

are on the ramble; he has eavesdroppers about him to pick up all that passes in families. He knows at once

where the servants are going away, and keeps a correct register, not only of vacant places, but of vacant

masters, with their good and bad properties. The fellow has been a friar in some convent or other. In short, he

While we were conversing about so singular an office of intelligence, the son of Nunez the barber took me

into a street which had no thoroughfare. We went into a mean house, where we found a man about fifty

writing at a table. We wished him good day, with quite as much humility as became us: but, whether it was

from natural pride, or that, from a habit of seeing none but lacqueys and coachmen, he had got a trick of

receiving his company with an easy freedom, without rising from his seat, he just gave a slight nod. He

seemed surprised that a young man in embroidered velvet should want a place; he had rather expected me to

have wanted a servant. However, he was not kept long in doubt, since Fabricio said at once: Signor Arias de

Londona, give me leave to introduce one of my best friends. He is a youth of good connections, whom

adverse circumstances have reduced to the necessity of going to service. Have the goodness to provide for

him handsomely, and you may trust to his gratitude. Gentlemen, replied Arias coolly, this is the way with you

all; before you are settled, you make the finest promises in the world: but afterwards, Lord help us! your

memories are very short. The deuce! replied Fabricio, why you do not complain of me? Have not I done the

thing genteelly? You ought to have done it much better, rejoined Arias: your place is better than a clerk in a

public office, and you paid me as if I had quartered you upon a poor author. Here I interfered, and told Master

Arias, that to convince him I was not a shabby fellow, I would make my acknowledgments beforehand; at the

same time taking out two ducats, with an assurance of not stopping there if he got me into a good berth.

He seemed to like my mode of dealing. There are, said he, some very good places vacant. I will give you a

list of them, and you shall take your choice. With these words, he put on his spectacles, opened a register on

the table, turned over a few of the leaves, and began reading to this effect: Captain Torbellino wants a

footman; a hasty, hairbrained, humoursome chap; scolds incessantly, swears, kicks his servants, and very

often cripples them. Go on to the next, cried I, at this picture; such a captain will never do for me. My

sprightliness made Arias smile, and he went on with his catalogue thus: Donna Manuela de Sandoval, a

superannuated dowager, peevish and fantastical, is in want at this very time; she keeps but one, and him never

for fourand twenty hours. There has been a livery in the house for these ten years, which fits every

newcorner, whether tall or short. They only just try it on; so that it is as good as new though it has had two

thousand owners. Doctor Alvar Fanez wants a journeyman; an eminent member of the faculty! He boards his

family very handsomely, has everything comfortable about him, and gives very high wages; but he is a little

too fond of experiments. When he gets a parcel of bad drugs, which happens very often, there is a pretty

Oh! I do not in the least doubt it, interrupted Fabricio with a horselaugh. Upon my word, you give me a fine

character of your customers. Patience, said Arias de Londona; we have not yet got to the end: there is variety

enough. Thereupon he continued to read on: Donna Alfonsa de Solis, an old devotee, who lives two thirds

of her time at church, and always keeps her servant at her apron string, has been in want for these three

weeks. The Licentiate S�dillo, an old prebendary of the chapter here, turned away his servant yesterday

evening Halt there, Signor Arias de Londona, cried Fabricio at that passage; we will stick to the church. The

Licentiate S�dillo is one of my master's friends, and I am very well acquainted with him. I know he has for

his housekeeper an old hypocrite, called Dame Jacintha, who is complete mistress of the family. It is one of

the best houses in Valladolid. A very idle life, and plenty of excellent meat and drink. Besides, his reverence

is an old, gouty, infirm man, likely soon to make his will: there is a legacy to be looked after. That is a

delightful prospect for one of our cloth! Gil Blas, added he, turning round to me, let us lose no time, my

friend, but go immediately to the licentiate's house. I will introduce you myself, and give you a character. At

CH. XVII. The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of the readyfurnished lodging. 46

these words, for fear of missing such an opportunity, we took a hasty leave of Signor Arias, who assured me,

for my money, that if I failed here, he would do something as good for me elsewhere.

WE were so dreadfully afraid of offending against the regular hours of the old licentiate, that we made but a

hop, skip, and jump, from the street with one outlet, to the prebendal residence. The gates were barred: but

we ventured to announce our arrival. A girl of ten years old, the housekeeper's professed niece, and slander

could not gainsay the relationship, opened the door to us. As we asked to speak with his reverence, Dame

Jacintha made her appearance. She was a lady of ripe person and parts, but by no means past her prime; and I

was particularly attracted by the clearness of her complexion. She wore a long woollen gown of the most

ordinary quality, with a large leathern girdle, whence hung suspended a bunch of keys on one side, and on the

other a tremendous string of beads. As soon as we got a glimpse of her, we made our obeisances with all

possible reverence. She returned our salutation with similar good breeding, but with an air of modesty, and

I have been told, said my fellow servant, that the reverend the Licentiate S�dillo wants an honest lad, and I

have one at his service with whom he will be well satisfied. The superintendent of the household turned up

her eyes at these words with a significant side glance at me; and, finding it difficult to reconcile my laced

jacket with Fabricio's exordium, asked if it was this fine gentleman who was come after the place. Yes, said

the son of Nunez, it is this interesting and engaging youth. Just as you see him, the ups and downs of this

transitory life have compelled him to wear an epaulette: but fate will have made him ample amends, added he

with an affected languish, if he is so happy as to be an inmate here, and to profit by the society of the virtuous

Jacintha. The patriarch of the Indies might have sighed for the virtuous Jacintha at the head of his

establishment. At these words, this withered branch of piety withdrew her penetrating regards from me, to

contemplate this courteous spokesman. Struck with certain lines which were not new to her, in his face, I

have some floating idea of having seen you before, said she; but my memory wants a lift. Holy Jacintha,

replied Fabricio, it is enough for me to have been blessed with your pious notice. Twice have I been under

this venerable roof with my master, Signor Manuel Ordonnez, governor of the hospital. Ah! just so, answered

the lady chamberlain, I recollect! You are an old acquaintance. Welladay now! Your very belonging to

Signor Ordonnez is enough to prove you a youth of merit and strict propriety. A servant is known by his

place, and this lad could not have had a better sponsor. Come along with me; I will introduce you to Signor

We followed Dame Jacintha. The canon lived in the lower part of the house, in a comfortable suite of

wainscotted apartments. She begged us to wait a moment in the antichamber, while she went into the

licentiate's room. After some private parley with him, merely that he might know what he was about, she

came to tell us we might walk in. We kenned the old cripple, immersed in an elbow chair, with a pillow under

his head, cushions under his arms, and his legs supported on a large stool, stuffed with down. We were no

niggards of our bows as we advanced; and Fabricio, still taking the lead, not only repeated over again what he

had said to the housekeeper, but set about extolling my merit, and expatiated in an especial manner on the

honours I had gained in the schools under Doctor Godinez on all metaphysical questions: as if it was

necessary for a prebendary's footman to be as learned as his master. However that might be, it served as a tub

to the whale. Besides, Dame Jacintha did not look forbidding, and my surety received the following answer:

Friend, I receive into my service the lad you recommend. I like him well enough; and as for his morals, they

cannot be much amiss, since he presents himself under the wing of a domestic belonging to Signor Ordonnez.

As soon as Fabricio saw me safe landed, he made a low bow to the prebendary, a still lower to the lady, and

withdrew in high good humour, whispering in my ear that we should meet again, and that I had only to make

good my footing. As soon as he had left the room, the licentiate inquired my name, why I had left my native

place; and drew me on by his questions to relate my adventures before Dame Jacintha. They were both highly

amused, above all by my last rencounter. Camilla and Don Raphael gave such play to their risible muscles,

that I thought old chalkstone would have burst: for, as he laughed with all his might, so violent a cough laid

hold of him, as went very near to have carried him off. His will was not made. What an alarm for the

housekeeper! Trembling, distracted, off she flew to the good man's succour, and just like a nurse with a

puking child, paddled about his forehead and tapped him on the back. Luckily it was a false alarm; the old

gentleman left off coughing, and the housekeeper tormenting him. When it was over, I was for going on with

my narrative; but Dame Jacintha, in awe of a second fit, set herself against it. She therefore took me with her

out of the room to a ward robe, where, among several suits, was that of my predecessor. This I was to take,

and leave my own in its room, which I was not sorry to see laid up safe, in the hope it might be of further use.

I knew what I was about in the art of dressing meat. Dame Leonarda, with whom I had served my time, might

have passed for a very decent plain cook; but a mere turnspit to dame Jacintha. The latter might almost have

borne away the bell from the archbishop of Toledo's man. She was mistress of everything; gravy soups, of the

most delicious texture and relish; and, for made dishes, she could season them up or soften them down to the

most delicate or voluptuous palate. At dinnertime we returned to his reverence's apartment. While I was

arranging the grand concern close by his armchair, the lady of all work crammed a napkin under the old

boy's chin, and pinned it behind his back. Without losing a moment, in marched I with a stew, fit to be set

before the first gourmand in Madrid, and two courses, to have tickled the gills of a viceroy, only that Dame

Jacintha had touched the spicebox with discretion, for fear of exasperating the gout. At the first glimpse of

this goodly mess, my old master, whom I conceived to have lost the use of his limbs, made me to understand

that his arms were exempted from the interdict He availed himself of their assistance, to get clear of his

pillow and cushions, and proceeded gaily to the attack. His hand shook, to be sure; but somehow or other it

contrived to do its duty. He sent it backwards and forwards fast enough; though it brought but half its cargo

to the landingplace at a lading: the table cloth and napkin took toll. I carried off the soup when he had done,

and brought in a partridge flanked by two roast quails, which Dame Jacintha cut up for him. She took care to

make him take a good draught of wine, a little lowered at proper intervals, out of a large, deep, silver cup,

which she held to his mouth, as if he had been an infant. He winged the partridge, and came down slap dash

upon all the rest of the dishes. When he had done cramming, that saint of the saucepan unpinned his napkin,

reinstated his pillow and cushions; then, leaving him composed in his armchair to the enjoyment of his usual

nap after dinner, we took away, and demolished the remainder with appetites worthy of our master.

The dinner of today was the ordinary bill of fare. Our canon played the best knife and fork in the chapter.

But the supper was a mere bauble; seldom more than a chicken and a little confectionery. I larded my inside

in this house, and led a good easy life. There was but one awkward circumstance; and that was sitting up with

my master, to save the expense of a nurse. Besides a strangury, which kept him on the fidget ten times in an

hour, he was very much given to perspire; and in that event, I shifted him. Gil Blas, said he, on the second

night, you are an active, clever fellow; I foresee that we shall jog on very well together. I only just give you a

hint to keep in with Dame Jacintha; the girl has been about me for these fifteen years, and manages all my

little matters; she comforts my outward man, and I cannot do too much for her. For that reason, you are to

know, that she is more to me than all my family. There is my nephew, my own sister's son; why, I have

turned him out of doors, only to please her. He had no regard for the poor lass: and so far from giving her

credit for all her little assiduities, the saucy rascal swore she did not care a farthing for me! But nowadays,

young people think virtue and gratitude all a farce. Heaven be praised, I am rid of the varlet. What claim has

blood, in comparison with unquestionable attachment? I am influenced by a giveandtake principle in my

connections. You are right, sir, replied I; gratitude ought to be the first thing, and natural affection the last.

Ay! resumed he; and my will shall be a comment on that text. My housekeeper shall be residuary legatee; and

you shall have a corner in a codicil, if you go on as well as you have begun. The footman I turned off

yesterday has lost a good legacy, by not knowing where to hit the right nail on the head. If the blockhead had

not obliged me, by his ill behaviour, to send him packing, I would have made a man of him: but the beggar

on horseback gave himself airs to Dame Jacintha! Then master lazybones did not like sitting up! I might

pass the night as I could, provided he had no trouble with me. Oh! the unfeeling scoundrel! exclaimed I, in

the true spirit of Fabricio, he was not a man to be about so good a master. The lad for your money should be a

humble, but confidential friend; he should not make a toil of what ought to be a pleasure, but think nothing of

These professions were not lost upon the licentiate. Neither were my assurances of due submission to Dame

Jacintha's authority less acceptable. Puffing myself off for a servant, who was not afraid of work, I got

through my business as cheerfully as I could. I never complained of my nursery. Though to be sure it was

irksome enough; and if the legacy had not settled my stomach, I should have sickened at the nature of my

employment. It is true I got some hours' rest during the day. The housekeeper, to do her justice, was kind

enough to me; owing to the insinuating manner in which I wormed myself into her good graces. Suppose me

at table, with her and her niece In�silla! I changed their plates, filled their glasses, never thought of my own

dinner before they had everything they wanted. This was the way to thrive in their esteem. One day when

Dame Jacintha was gone to market, finding myself alone with In�silla, I began to make myself agreeable.

Were her father and mother alive? Oh! no, answered she; they have been dead this long, long time; for my

good aunt says they have, and I have never seen them. I religiously believed the little innocent, though her

answer was not of the clearest; and she got into such an humour of talking, as to tell me more than I wanted

to know. She informed me, or rather I inferred it from her artless simplicity, that her good aunt had a good

friend, who lived likewise with an old canon. The temporalities of the church were under his administration;

and these lucky domestics reckoned upon entwining the spoils of their masters round the pillars of the

hymeneal temple, into whose sanctuary they had penetrated by anticipation. Dame Jacintha, as I have said

before, though a little stricken in years, had still some bloom. To be sure, she spared no pains to cherish it:

besides daily evacuations, she took plentiful doses of allpowerful jelly. She got her sleep in the night too,

while I sat up with my master. But what perhaps contributed most to the freshness of this everlasting flower,

was an issue in each leg, of which I should never have known, but for that blab In�silla.

I STAID three months with the Licentiate S�dillo, without complaining of bad nights. At the end of that time

he fell sick. The distemper was a fever; and it inflamed the gout For the first time in his life, which had been

long, he called in a physician. Doctor Sangrado was sent for; the Hippocrates of Valladolid. Dame Jacintha

was for sending for the lawyer first, and touched that string; but the patient thought it was time enough, and

had a little will of his own upon some points. Away I went therefore for Doctor Sangrado; and brought him

with me. A tall, withered, wan executioner of the sisters three, who had done all their justice for at least these

forty years! This learned forerunner of the undertaker had an aspect suited to his office: his words were

weighed to a scruple; and his jargon sounded grand in the ears of the uninitiated. His arguments were

After studying my master's symptoms, he began with medical solemnity: The question here is, to remedy an

obstructed perspiration. Ordinary practitioners, in this case, would follow the old routine of salines, diuretics,

volatile salts, sulphur and mercury; but purges and sudorifics are a deadly practice! Chemical preparations are

edged tools in the hands of the ignorant. My methods are more simple, and more efficacious. What is your

usual diet? I live pretty much upon soups, replied the canon, and eat my meat with a good deal of gravy.

Soups and gravy! exclaimed the petrified doctor. Upon my word, it is no wonder you are ill. High living is a

poisoned bait; a trap set by sensuality, to cut short the days of wretched man. We must have done with

CH. II. The canon's illness; his treatment; the consequence; the legacy to Gil Blas. 49

pampering our appetites: the more insipid, the more wholesome. The human blood is not a gravy! Why then

you must give it such a nourishment as will assimilate with the particles of which it is composed. You drink

wine, I warrant you? Yes, said the licentiate, but diluted. Oh! finely diluted, I dare say, rejoined the physician.

This is licentiousness with a vengeance! A frightful course of feeding! Why, you ought to have died years

ago. How old are you? I am in my sixtyninth year, replied the canon. So I thought, quoth the practitioner, a

premature old age is always the consequence of in temperance. If you had only drank clear water all your life,

and had been contented with plain food, boiled apples for instance, you would not have been a martyr to the

gout, and your limbs would have performed their functions with lubricity. But I do not despair of setting you

on your legs again, provided you give yourself up to my management. The licentiate promised to be upon his

Sangrado then sent me for a surgeon of his own choosing, and took from him six good porringers of blood,

by way of a beginning, to remedy this obstinate obstruction. He then said to the surgeon; Master Martin

Onez, you will take as much more three hours hence, and tomorrow you will repeat the operation. It is a

mere vulgar error, that the blood is of any use in the system; the faster you draw it off the better. A patient has

nothing to do but to keep himself quiet; with him, to live is merely not to die; he has no more occasion for

blood than a man in a trance; in both cases, life consists exclusively in pulsation and respiration. When the

doctor had ordered these frequent and copious bleedings, he added a drench of warm water at very short

intervals, maintaining that water in sufficient quantities was the grand secret in the materia medica. He then

took his leave, telling Dame Jacintha and me, with an air of confidence, that he would answer for the patient's

life, if his system was fairly pursued. The housekeeper, though protesting secretly against this new practice,

bowed to his superior authority. In fact, we set on the kettles in a hurry; and, as the physician had desired us

above all things to give him enough, we began with pouring down two or three pints at as many gulps. An

hour after we beset him again; then, returning to the attack time after time, we fairly poured a deluge into his

poor stomach The surgeon, on the other hand, taking out the blood as we put in the water, we reduced the old

This venerable ecclesiastic, able to hold it out no longer, as I pledged him in a large glass of his new cordial,

said to me in a faint voice Hold, Gil Blas, do not give me any more, my friend. It is plain death will come

when he will come, in spite of water; and, though I have hardly a drop of blood in my veins, I am no better

for getting rid of the enemy. The ablest physician in the world can do nothing for us, when our time is

expired. Fetch a notary; I will make my will. At these last words, pleasing enough to my fancy, I affected to

appear unhappy; and concealing my impatience to be gone: Sir, said I, you are not reduced so low, thank

God, but you may yet recover. No, no, interrupted he, my good fellow, it is all over. I feel the gout shifting,

and the hand of death is upon me. Make haste, and go where I told you. I saw, sure enough, that he changed

every moment: and the case was so urgent, that I ran as fast as I could, leaving him in Dame Jacintha's care,

who was more afraid than myself of his dying without a will. I laid hold of the first notary I could find; Sir,

said I, the Licentiate S�dillo, my master, is drawing near his end; he wants to settle his affairs; there is not a

moment to be lost. The notary was a dapper little fellow, who loved his joke; and inquired who was our

physician. At the name of Doctor Sangrado, hurrying on his cloak and hat: For mercy's sake! cried he, let us

set off with all possible speed; for this doctor dispatches business so fast, that our fraternity cannot keep pace

With this sarcasm, he set forward in good earnest, and, as we pushed on, to get the start of the grim tyrant, I

said to him: Sir, you are aware that a dying testator's memory is sometimes a little short; should my master

chance to for get me, be so good as to put in a word in my favour. That I will, my lad, replied the little

proctor; you may rely on it. I will urge something handsome, if I have an opportunity. The licentiate, on our

arrival, had still all his faculties about him. Dame Jacintha was by his bedside, laying in her tears by

wholesale. She had played her game, and bespoken a handsome remembrance. We left the notary alone with

my master, and went together into the antichamber, where we met the surgeon, sent by the physician for

another and a last experiment. We laid hold of him. Stop, Master Martin, said the housekeeper, you cannot go

CH. II. The canon's illness; his treatment; the consequence; the legacy to Gil Blas. 50

into Signor S�dillo's room just now. He is giving his last orders; but you may bleed away when the will is

We were terribly afraid, this pious gentlewoman and I, lest the licentiate should go off with his will half

finished; but by good luck, the important deed was executed. We saw the proctor come out, who, finding me

on the watch, slapped me on the shoulder, and said with a simper: Gil Blas is not forgotten. At these words, I

felt the must lively joy; and was so well pleased with my master for his kind notice, that I promised myself

the pleasure of praying for his soul after death, which event happened anon; for the surgeon having bled him

once more, the poor old man, quite exhausted, gave up the ghost under the lancet. Just as he was breathing his

last, the physician made his appearance, and looked a little foolish, notwithstanding the universality of his

deathbed experience. Yet far from imputing the accident to the new practice, he walked off, affirming with

intrepidity, that it was owing to their having been too lenient with the lancet, and too chary of their warm

water. The medical executioner, I mean the surgeon, seeing that his functions also were at an end, followed

As soon as we saw the breath out of our patron's body, Dame Jacintha, In�silla, and myself, joined in a decent

chorus of funeral lamentation, loud enough to produce a proper effect in the neighbourhood. The emblem of a

life to come, though she had more reason than any of us to rejoice, took the soprano part, and screamed out

her afflictions in a most pathetic manner. The room in an instant was crowded with people, attracted less by

compassion than curiosity. The relations of the deceased no sooner got wind of his departure than they

pounced down upon the premises, and sealed up everything. From the housekeeper's distreess they thought

there was no will; but they soon found their mistake, and that there was one without a flaw. When it was

opened, and they learned the disposition of the testator's principal property, in favour of Dame Jacintha and

the little girl, they pronounced his funeral oration in terms not a little disparaging to his memory. They gave a

broad apostrophe at the same time to the godly legatee, and a few blessings to me in my turn. It must be

owned I had earned them. The licentiate, heaven reward him for it, to secure my remembrances through life,

expressed himself thus in a paragraph of his will Item, as Gil Blas has already some little smattering of

literature, to encourage his studious habits, I give and bequeath to him my library, all my books and my

I could not conceive where this said library might be; I had never seen any. I only knew of some papers, with

five or six bound books, on two little deal shelves in my master's closet; and that was my legacy. The books

too could be of no great use to me; the title of one was, The complete Man Cook; another, A Treatise on

Indigestion, with the Methods of Cure; the rest were the four parts of the breviary, half eaten up by the

worms. In the article of manuscripts, the most curious consisted of documents relating to a lawsuit in which

the prebendary was once engaged for his stall. After having examined my legacy with more minuteness than

it deserved, I made over my right and title to these invidious relations. I even renounced my livery, and took

back my own suit, claiming my wages as my only reward. I then went to look out for another place. As for

Dame Jacintha, besides her residue under the will, she had some snug little articles, which, by the help of her

good friend, she had appropriated to her own use during the last illness of the licentiate.

I DETERMINED to throw myself in the way of Signor Arias de Londona, and to look out for a new berth in

his register; but as I was on my way to No Thoroughfare, who should come across me but Doctor Sangrado,

whom I had not seen since the day of my master's death. I took the liberty of touching my hat. He kenned me

in a twinkling, though I had changed my dress; and with as much warmth as his temperament would allow

him; Hey day! said he, the very lad I wanted to see; you have never been out of my thought. I have occasion

for a clever fellow about me, and pitched upon you as the very thing, if you can read and write. Sir, replied I,

CH. III. Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner. 51

if that is all you require, I am your man. In that case, rejoined he, we need look no further. Come home with

me; it will be all comfort: I shall behave to you like a brother. You will have no wages, but everything will be

found you. You shall eat and drink according to the true faith, and be taught to cure all diseases. In a word,

I closed in with the doctor's proposal, in the hope of becoming an Esculapius under so inspired a master. He

carried me home on the spur of the occasion, to instal me in my honourable employment; which honourable

employment consisted in writing down the name and residence of the patients who sent for him in his

absence. There had indeed been a register for this purpose, kept by an old domestic; but she had not the gift

of spelling accurately, and wrote a most perplexing hand. This account I was to keep. It might truly be called

a bill of mortality; for my members all went from bad to worse during the short time they continued in this

system. I was a sort of bookkeeper for the other world, to take places in the stage, and to see that the first

come were the first served. My pen was always in my hand, for Doctor Sangrado had more practice than any

physician of his time in Valladolid. He had got into reputation with the public by a certain professional slang,

humoured by a medical face, and some extraordinary cases, more honoured by implicit faith than scrupulous

He was in no want of patients, nor consequently of property. He did not keep the best house in the world; we

lived with some little attention to economy. The usual bill of fare consisted of peas, beans, boiled apples or

cheese. He considered this food as best suited to the human stomach, that is to say, as most amenable to the

grinders, whence it was to encounter the process of digestion. Nevertheless, easy as was their passage, he was

not for stopping the way with too much of them: and, to be sure, he was in the right. But though he cautioned

the maid and me against repletion in respect of solids, it was made up by free permission to drink as much

water as we liked. Far from prescribing us any limits there, he would tell us sometimes Drink, my

children; health consists in the pliability and moisture of the parts. Drink water by pails full, it is a universal

dissolvent; water liquefies all the salts. Is the course of the blood a little sluggish? this grand principle sets it

forward: too rapid? its career is checked. Our doctor was so orthodox on this head, that he drank nothing

himself but water, though advanced in years. He defined old age to be a natural consumption which dries us

up and wastes us away: on this principle, he deplored the ignorance of those who call wine old men's milk.

He maintained that wine wears them out and corrodes them, and pleaded with all the force of eloquence

against that liquor, fatal in common both to the young and old, that friend with a serpent in its bosom, that

In spite of these fine arguments, at the end of a week a looseness ensued, with some twinges, which I was

blasphemous enough to saddle on the universal dissolvent, and the new fashioned diet. I stated my

symptoms to my master, in the hope he would relax the rigour of his regimen, and qualify my meals with a

little wine, but his hostility to that liquor was inflexible. If you have not philosophy enough, said he, for pure

water, there are innocent infusions to strengthen the stomach against the nausea of aqueous quaffings. Sage,

for example, has a very pretty flavour: and if you wish to heighten it into a debauch, it is only mixing

In vain did he crack off his water, and teach me the secret of composing delicious messes. I was so

abstemious, that, remarking my moderation, he said In good sooth, Gil Blas, I marvel not that you are no

better than you are; you do not drink enough, my friend. Water taken in a small quantity serves only to

separate the particles of bile and set them in action; but our practice is to drown them in a copious drench,

Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid should either weaken or chill your stomach; far from

thy better judgment be that silly fear of unadulterated drink. I will ensure you against all consequences; and if

my authority will not serve your turn, read Celsus. That oracle of the ancients makes an admirable panegyric

on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who plead an inconstant stomach in favour of wine,

publish a libel on their own bowels, and make their organization a pretence for their sensuality.

CH. III. Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner. 52

As it would have been ungenteel in me to have run riot on my entrance into the career of practice, I affected

thorough conviction; indeed, I thought there was something in it. I therefore went on drinking water on the

authority of Celsus, or, to speak in scientific terms, I began to drown the bile in copious drenches of that

unadulterated liquor; and though I felt myself more out of order from day to day, prejudice won the cause

against experience. It is evident, therefore, that I was in the right road to the practice of physic. Yet I could

not always be insensible to the qualms which increased in my frame, to that degree, as to determine me on

quitting Doctor Sangrado. But he invested me with a new office which changed my tone. Hark you, my child,

said he to me one day, I am not one of those hard and ungrateful masters, who leave their household to grow

grey in service without a suitable reward. I am well pleased with you, I have a regard for you, and without

waiting till you have served your time, I will make your fortune. Without more ado, I will initiate you in the

healing art, of which I have for so many years been at the head. Other physicians make the science to consist

of various unintelligible branches; but I will shorten the road for you, and dispense with the drudgery of

studying natural philosophy, pharmacy, botany, and anatomy. Remember, my friend, that bleeding and

drinking warm water are the two grand principles; the true secret of curing all the distempers incident to

humanity. Yes, this marvellous secret which I reveal to you, and which nature, beyond the reach of my

colleagues, has failed in rescuing from my pen, is comprehended in these two articles namely, bleeding

and drenching. Here you have the sum total of my philosophy; you are thoroughly bottomed in medicine, and

may raise yourself to the summit of fame on the shoulders of my long experience. You may enter into

partnership at once, by keeping the books in the morning, and going out to visit patients in the afternoon.

While I dose the nobility and clergy, you shall labour in your vocation among the lower orders; and when you

have felt your ground a little, I will get you admitted into our body. You are a philosopher, Gil Blas, though

you have never graduated; the common herd of them, though they have graduated in due form and order, are

likely to run out the length of their tether without knowing their right hand from their left.

I thanked the doctor for having so speedily enabled me to serve as his deputy; and, by way of acknowledging

his goodness, promised to follow his system to the end of my career, with a magnanimous indifference about

the aphorisms of Hippocrates. But that engagement was not to be taken to the letter. This tender attachment to

water went against the grain, and I had a scheme for drinking wine every day snugly among the patients. I left

off wearing my own suit a second time, to take up one of my master's, and look like an inveterate

practitioner. After which I brought my medical theories into play, leaving them to look to the event whom it

might concern. I began on an alguazil in a pleurisy; he was condemned to be bled with the utmost rigour of

the law, at the same time that the system was to be replenished copiously with water. Next I made a lodgment

in the veins of a gouty pastrycook, who roared like a lion by reason of gouty spasms. I stood on no more

ceremony with his blood than with that of the alguazil, and laid no restriction on his taste for simple liquids.

My prescriptions brought me in twelve rials; an incident so auspicious in my professional career, that I only

wished for the plagues of Egypt on all the hale subjects of Valladolid. As I was coming out of the

pastrycook's whom should I meet but Fabricio, a total stranger since the death of the licentiate S�dillo! He

looked at me with astonishment for some seconds; then set up a laugh with all his might, and held his sides.

He had no reason to be grave, for I had a cloak trailing on the ground, with a doublet and breeches of four

times my natural dimensions. I was certainly a complete original. I suffered him to make merry as long as he

liked, and could scarcely help joining in the ridicule; but I kept a guard on my muscles to preserve a

becoming dignity in public, and the better to enact the physician, whose part in society is not that of a

buffoon. If the absurdity of my appearance excited Fabricio's merriment, my affected gravity added zest to it;

and when he had nearly exhausted his lungs By all the powers, Gil Blas, quoth he, thou art in complete

masquerade. Who the devil has dressed you up in this manner? Fair and softly, my friend, replied I, fair and

softly, be a little on your good behaviour with a modern Hippocrates. Understand me to be the substitute of

Doctor Sangrado, the most eminent physician in Valladolid. I have lived with him these three weeks. He has

bottomed me thoroughly in medicine; and, as he cannot perform the obsequies of all the patients who send for

him, I visit a part of them to take the burden off his conscience. He does execution in great families, I among

the vulgar. Vastly well, replied Fabricio; that is to say, he grants you a lease on the blood of the commonalty,

but keeps to himself the feesimple of the fashionable world. I wish you joy of your lot; it is a pleasanter line

CH. III. Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner. 53

of practice among the populace than among great folk. Long live a snug connection in the suburbs! a man's

mistakes are easily buried, and his murders elude all but God's revenge. Yes, my brave boy, your destiny is

truly enviable; in the language of Alexander, were I not Fabricio, I could wish to be Gil Blas.

To show the son of Nunez, the barber, that he was not much out in his reckoning on my present happiness, I

chinked the fees of the alguazil and the pastrycook; and this was followed by an adjournment to a tavern, to

drink to their perfect recovery. The wine was very fair, and my impatience for the wellknown smack made

me think it better than it was. I took some good long draughts, and without gainsaying the Latin oracle, in

proportion as I poured it into its natural reservoir, I felt my accommodating entrails to owe me no grudge for

the hard service into which I pressed them. As for Fabricio and myself, we sat some time in the tavern,

making merry at the expense of our masters, as servants are too much accustomed to do. At last, seeing the

night approach, we parted, after engaging to meet at the same place on the following day after dinner.

I WAS no sooner at home than Doctor Sangrado came in. I talked to him about the patients I had seen, and

paid into his hands eight remaining rials of the twelve I had received for my prescriptions. Eight rials! said

he, as he counted them, mighty little for two visits! But we must take things as we find them. In the spirit of

taking things as he found them, he laid violent hands on six, giving me the other two Here, Gil Blas,

continued he, see what a foundation to build upon. I make over to you the fourth of all you may bring me.

You will soon feather your nest, my friend; for, by the blessing of Providence, there will be a great deal of ill

I had reason to be content with my dividend; since, having determined to keep back the third part of what I

received in my rounds, and afterwards touching another fourth of the remainder, half of the whole, if

arithmetic is anything more than a deception, would become my perquisite. This inspired me with new zeal

for my profession. The next day, as soon as I had dined, I resumed my medical paraphernalia, and took the

field once more. I visited several patients on the list, and treated their several complaints in one invariable

routine. Hitherto things went on under the rose, and no individual, thank heaven, had risen up in rebellion

extraordinary as they will, some quack or other is always ready to rip up his reputation. I was called in to a

grocer's son in a dropsy. Whom should I find there before me but a little black looking physician, by name

Doctor Cuchillo, introduced by a relation of the family. I bowed round most profoundly, but dipped lowest to

the personage whom I took to have been invited to a consultation with me. He returned my compliment with

a distant air; then, having stared me in the face for a few seconds Signor Doctor, said he, I beg pardon for

being inquisitive, I thought I had been acquainted with all my brethren in Valladolid, but I confess your

physiognomy is altogether new. You must have been settled but a short time in town. I avowed myself a

young practitioner, acting as yet under the direction of Doctor Sangrado. I wish you joy, replied he politely,

you are studying under a great man. You must doubtless have seen a vast deal of sound practice, young as

you appear to be, He spoke this with so easy an assurance, that I was at a loss whether he meant it seriously,

or was laughing at me. While I was conning over my reply, the grocer, seizing on the opportunity, said

Gentlemen, I am persuaded of your both being perfectly competent in your art; have the goodness without

ado to take the case in hand, and devise some effectual means for the restoration of my son's health.

Thereupon the little pulsecounter set himself about reviewing the patient's situation; and after having dilated

to me on all the symptoms, asked me what I thought the fittest method of treatment. I am of opinion, replied

I, that he should be bled once a day, and drink as much warm water as he can swallow. At these words, our

diminutive doctor said to me with a malicious simper And so you think such a course will save the

CH. IV. Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the recovered ring. 54

patient? Never doubt it, exclaimed I in a confident tone; it must produce that effect, because it is a certain

method of cure for all distempers. Ask Signor Sangrado. At that rate, retorted he, Celsus is altogether in the

wrong; for he contends that the readiest way to cure a dropsical subject is to let him almost die of hunger and

thirst. Oh! as for Celsus, interrupted I, he is no oracle of mine, as fallible as the meanest of us; I often have

occasion to bless myself for going contrary to his dogmas. I discover by your language, said Cuchillo, the

safe and sure method of practice Doctor Sangrado instils into his pupils. Bleeding and drenching are the

extent of his resources. No wonder so many worthy people are cut off under his direction . . . . No

defamation! interrupted I with some acrimony; a member of the faculty had better not begin throwing stones.

Come, come, my learned doctor, patients can get to the other world without bleeding and warm water; and I

question whether the most deadly of us has ever signed more passports than yourself. If you have any crow to

pluck with Signor Sangrado, write against him, he will answer you, and we shall soon see who will have the

best of the battle. By all the saints in the calendar! swore he, in a transport of passion, you little know whom

you are talking to. I have a tongue and a fist, my friend; and am not afraid of Sangrado, who, with all his

arrogance and affectation, is but a ninny. The size of the little deathdealer made me hold his anger cheap. I

gave him a sharp retort; he sent back as good as I brought, till at last we came to cuffs. We had pulled a few

handfuls of hair from each other's heads before the grocer and his kinsman could part us. When they had

brought this about, they feed me for my attendance, and retained my antagonist, whom they thought the more

Another adventure succeeded close on the heels of this. I went to see a huge chanter in a fever. As soon as he

heard me talk of warm water, he showed himself so averse to this specific, as to fall into a fit of swearing. He

abused me in all possible shapes, and threatened to throw me out at window. I was in a greater hurry to get

out of his house than to get in. I did not choose to see any more patients that day, and repaired to the inn

where I had agreed to meet Fabricio. He was there first. As we found ourselves in a tippling humour, we

drank hard, and returned to our employers in a pretty pickle, that is to say, soso in the upper story. Signor

Sangrado was not aware of my being drunk, because he took the lively gestures which accompanied the

relation of my quarrel with the little doctor, for an effect of the agitation not yet subsided after the battle.

Besides, he came in for his share in my report; and feeling himself nettled by Cuchillo You have done

well, Gil Blas, said he, to defend the character of our practice against this little abortion of the faculty. So he

takes upon him to set his face against watery drenches in dropsical cases? An ignorant fellow! I maintain, I

do, in my own person, that the use of them may be reconciled to the best theories. Yes, water is a cure for all

sorts of dropsies, just as it is good for rheumatisms and the green sickness. It is excellent, too, in those fevers

where the effect is at once to parch and to chill, and even miraculous in those disorders ascribed to cold, thin,

phlegmatic, and pituitous humours. This opinion may seem strange to young practitioners like Cuchillo; but it

is right orthodox in the best and soundest systems: so that if persons of that description were capable of

taking a philosophical view, instead of crying me down, they would become my most zealous advocates.

In his rage, he never suspected me of drinking: for, to exasperate him still more against the little doctor, I had

thrown into my recital some circumstances of my own addition. Yet, engrossed as he was by what I had told

him, he could not help taking notice that I drank more water than usual that evening.

In fact, the wine had made me very thirsty. Any one but Sangrado would have distrusted my being so very

dry, as to swallow down glass after glass: but as for him, he took it for granted, in the simplicity of his heart,

that I began to acquire a relish for aqueous potations. Apparently, Gil Blas, said he with a gracious smile, you

have no longer such a dislike to water. As heaven is my judge! you quaff it off like nectar. It is no wonder,

my friend, I was certain you would take a liking to that liquor. Sir, replied I, there is a tide in the affairs of

men: with my present lights, I would give all the wine in Valladolid for a pint of water. This answer delighted

the doctor, who would not lose so fine an opportunity of expatiating on the excellence of water. He undertook

to ring the changes once more in its praise, not like a hireling pleader, but as an enthusiast in the cause. A

thousand times, exclaimed he, a thousand and a thousand times of greater value, as being more innocent than

our modern taverns, were those baths of ages past, whither the people went not shamefully to squander their

CH. IV. Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the recovered ring. 55

fortunes and expose their lives, by swilling themselves with wine, but assembled there for the decent and

economical amusement of drinking warm water. It is difficult enough to admire the patriotic forecast of those

ancient politicians, who established places of public resort, where water was dealt out gratis to all comers,

and who confined wine to the shops of the apothecaries, that its use might be prohibited but under the

direction of physicians. What a stroke of wisdom! It is doubtless to preserve the seeds of that antique

frugality, emblematic of the golden age, that persons are found to this day, like you and me, who drink

nothing but water, and are persuaded they possess a prevention or a cure for every ailment, provided our

warm water has never boiled; for I have observed that water, when it has boiled, is heavier, and sits less

While he was holding forth thus eloquently, I was in danger more than once of splitting my sides with

laughing. But I contrived to keep my countenance: nay, more; to chime in with the doctor's theory. I found

fault with the use of wine, and pitied mankind for having contracted an untoward relish to so pernicious a

beverage. Then, finding my thirst not sufficiently allayed, I filled a large goblet with water, and after having

swilled it like a horse: Come, sir, said I to my master, let us drink plentifully of this beneficial liquor. Let us

make those early establishments of dilution you so much regret, to live again in your house. He clapped his

hands in ecstacy at these words, and preached to me for a whole hour about suffering no liquid but water to

pass my lips. To confirm the habit, I promised to drink a large quantity every evening; and, to keep my word

with less violence to my private inclinations, I went to bed with a determined purpose of going to the tavern

The trouble I had got into at the grocer's did not discourage me from phlebotomizing and prescribing warm

water in the usual course. Coming out of a house where I had been visiting a poet in a phrenzy, I was

accosted in the street by an old woman who came up and asked me if I was a physician. I said yes. As that is

the case, replied she, I entreat you with all humility to go along with me. My niece has been ill since

yesterday, and I cannot conceive what is the matter with her. I followed the old lady to her house, where I

was shown into a very decent room, occupied by a female who kept her bed. I went near, to consider her case.

Her features struck me from the first; and I discovered beyond the possibility of a mistake, after having

looked at her some little time, the sheadventurer who had played the part of Camilla so adroitly. For her

part, she did not seem to recollect me at all, whether from the oppression of her disorder, or from my dress as

a physician rendering me not easy to be known again. I took her by the hand, to feel her pulse; and saw my

ring upon her finger. I was all in a twitter at the discovery of a valuable, on which I had a claim both in law

and equity. Great was my longing to make a snatch at it; but considering that these fair ones would set up a

great scream, and that Don Raphael or some other defender of injured innocence might rush in to their rescue,

I laid an embargo on my privateering. I thought it best to come by my own in an honest way, and to consult

Fabricio about the means. To this last course I stuck. In the mean time the old woman urged me to inform her

with what disease her niece was troubled. I was not fool enough to own my ignorance; on the contrary, I took

upon myself as a man of science, and after my master's example, pronounced solemnly that the disorder

accrued to the patient from the defect of natural perspiration; that consequently she must lose blood as soon

as possible, because if we could not open one pore, we always open another: and I finished my prescription

I shortened my visit as much as possible, and ran to the son of Nunez, whom I met just as he was going out

on an errand for his master. I told him my new adventure, and asked his advice about laying an information

against Camilla. Pooh! Nonsense! replied he; that would not be the way to get your ring again. Those gentry

think restitution double trouble. Call to mind your imprisonment at Astorga; your horse, your money, your

very clothes, did not they all centre in the hands of justice? We must rather set our wits to work for the

recovery of your diamond. I take on myself the charge of inventing some stratagem for that purpose. I will

deliberate it in my way to the hospital, where I have to say but two words from my master to the purveyor.

Do you wait for me at our house of call, and do not be on the fret: I will be with you shortly.

CH. IV. Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the recovered ring. 56

I had waited, however, more than three hours at the appointed place, when he arrived. I did not know him

again at first. Besides that he had changed his dress and platted his hair, a pair of false whiskers covered half

his face. He wore an immense sword with a hilt of at least three feet in circumference, and marched at the

head of five men of as swaggering an air as himself, with bushy whiskers and long rapiers. Good day to you,

Signor Gil Blas, said he by way of salutation; behold an alguazil upon a new construction, and marshalmen of

like materials in these brave fellows my companions. We have only to be shown where the woman lodges

who purloined the diamond, and we will obtain restitution, take my word for it. I hugged Fabricio at this

discourse, which let me into the plot, and testified loudly my approval of the expedient. I paid my respects

also to the masquerading marshalmen. They were three servants and two journeymen barbers of his

acquaintance, whom he had engaged to act this farce. I ordered wine to be served round to the detachment,

and we all went together at nightfall to Camilla's residence. The door was shut, and we knocked. The old

woman, taking my companions to be on the scent of justice, and knowing they would not come into that

neighbourhood for nothing, was terribly frightened. Cheer up again, good mother, said Fabricio; we are only

come here upon a little business which will be soon settled. At these words we made our entry, and found our

way to the sick chamber, under the guidance of the old dowager who walked before us, and by favour of a

wax taper which she carried in a silver candlestick. I took the light, went to the bedside, and, making

Camilla take particular notice of my features, Traitress, said I, call to mind the too credulous Gil Blas whom

you have deceived Ah! thou wickedness personified, at last I have caught thee. The corregidor has taken

down my deposition, and ordered this alguazil to arrest you. Come, officer, said I to Fabricio, do your duty.

There is no need, replied he, swelling his voice, to inflame my severity. The face of that wretch is not new to

me: she has long been marked with red letters in my pocketbook. Get up, my princess, dress your royal

person with all possible dispatch. I will be your squire, and lodge you in durance vile, if you have no

At these words, Camilla, ill as she was, observing two marshalmen with large whiskers ready to drag her out

of bed by main force, sat up of herself, clasped her hands in an attitude of supplication; and looking at me

ruefully, said, Signor Gil Blas, have compassion on me: I call as a witness to my entreaties the chaste mother

whose virtues you inherit. Guilty as I am, my misfortunes are greater than my crimes. I will give you back

your diamond, so do not be my ruin. Speaking to this effect, she drew my ring from her finger, and gave it me

back. But I told her my diamond was not enough, and that she must refund the thousand ducats they had

embezzled in the readyfurnished lodging. Oh! as for your ducats, replied she, ask me not about them. That

false hearted deceiver, Don Raphael, whom I have not seen from that time to this, carried them off the very

same night. O ho! my little darling, said Fabricio in his turn, that will not do, you had a hand in the robbery,

whether you went snacks in the profit or no. You will not come off so cheaply. Your having been accessory

to Don Raphael's manoeuvres is enough to render you liable to an examination. Your past life is very

equivocal; and you must have a good deal upon your conscience. You will have the goodness, if you please,

just to step into the town jail, and there unburden yourself by a general confession. This good old lady shall

keep you company; it is hard if she cannot tell a world of curious stories, such as Mr Corregidor will be

The two women, at these words, brought every engine of pity into play to soften us. They filled the air with

cries, complaints, and lamentations. While the old woman on her knees, sometimes to the alguazil and

sometimes to his attendants, endeavoured. to melt their stubborn hearts, Camilla implored me, in the most

touching terms, to save her from the hands of justice. I pretended to relent. Officer, said I to the son of Nunez,

since I have got my diamond, I do not much care about anything else. It would be no pleasure to me to be the

means of pain to that poor woman; I want not the death of a sinner. Out upon you, answered he, you set up

for humanity! you would make a bad tipstaff. I must do my errand. My positive orders are to arrest these

virgins of the sun; his honour the corregidor means to make an example of them. Nay! for mercy's sake,

replied I, pay some little deference to my wishes, and slacken a little of your severity, on the ground of the

present these ladies are on the point of offering to your acceptance. Oh! that is another matter, rejoined he;

that is what you may call a figure of rhetoric suited to all capacities and all occasions. Well, then, let us see,

CH. IV. Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the recovered ring. 57

what have they to give me? I have a pearl necklace, said Camilla, and drop earrings of considerable value.

Yes; but, interrupted he roughly, if these articles are the produce of the Philippine Isles, I will have none of

them. You may take them in perfect safety, replied she: I warrant them real. At the same time she made the

old woman bring a little box, whence she took out the necklace and earrings, which she put within the grasp

of this incorruptible minister. Though he was much such a judge of jewellery as myself, he had no doubt of

the drops being real, as well as the pearls. These trinkets, said he, after having looked at them minutely, seem

to be of good quality and fashion: and if the silver candlestick is thrown into the bargain, I would not answer

for my own honesty. You had better not, said I in my turn to Camilla, for a trifle, reject so moderate and fair a

composition. While uttering these words, I returned the taper to the old woman, and handed the candlestick

over to Fabricio, who, stopping there because perhaps he espied nothing else that was portable in the room,

said to the two women: Farewell, my dainty misses, set your hearts at rest, I will report you to his worship the

corregidor, as purer than unsmutched snow. We can turn him round our finger; and never tell him the truth,

AFTER having thus carried Fabricio's plan into effect, we took our leave of Camilla's lodging, hugging

ourselves on a success beyond our expectation; for we had only reckoned on the ring. We carried off without

ceremony all we could get besides. Far from making it a point of conscience not to steal from a description of

ladies whose names are commonly associated with rogues, we thought to cover some scores of other sins by

so meritorious an action. Gentle men, said Fabricio, when we were in the street, my counsel is for returning to

our tavern, and devoting the night to a regale. Tomorrow we will sell the candlestick, the necklace, the drop

earrings, and then share the prize money like brother adventurers, after which every man shall tramp home

again, and make the best excuse he can to his master. His worship the alguazil's idea seemed equally bright

and judicious. We returned rank and file to the tavern, some in the pious hope of finding a plausible excuse

for having slept abroad, others in a desperate indifference about being turned out of doors without a character.

We ordered a good supper to be got ready, and sat down to table with our physical and mental powers in full

vigour. The relish was heightened by a thousand pleasant anecdotes. Fabricio, of all men in the world, having

the happy knack of a chairman in a company of jovial spirits, kept the table in a roar. There escaped from him

I know not how many charges of true Castilian wit, worth more either in the schools of philosophy or the

exchange of commerce than the drug of Attic salt. While we were in a full peal of laughter, we were made to

laugh on the other side of our mouths by an unforeseen occurrence. There appeared at table a man of no

contemptible prowess, followed by two other as illlooking dogs as ever existed. After this specimen we had

three others, and reckoned up to a dozen, marching in by triplets. They were armed with carbines, swords,

and bayonets. We could not mistake their office, and were at no loss to guess their business. At first we had a

mind to be refractory; but they beset us in an instant, and kept us under, as much by their numbers as by their

weapons. Gentlemen, said the captain commandant in a jeering strain, I have been informed by what

ingenious artifice you have recovered a ring from the custody of a lady no better than she should be.

Undoubtedly, the device was admirable, and well deserves a civic crown; the patriotism of our police will not

be found wanting. Justice, with her lodgings to let for gentry of your description, will not be deficient in her

acknowledgments for so brilliant a display of genius. The company to whom this introductory address was

directed, looked a little sheepish on the occasion. Our countenances fell; and Camilla had her full revenge.

Fabricio, however, though pale and puzzled, made an attempt at a defence. Sir, said he, we did it in the

innocence of our hearts, and. of course we shall be forgiven this not immoral fraud? What the devil, replied

the commandant in a rage, do you call this a not immoral fraud? Moral or immoral, it may bring you to the

gallows. Besides that the power of restitution is too sacred to be assumed by the individual, you have made

away with a candlestick, a necklace, and a pair of drop earrings: and what is worse, you have committed

your rascalities in the livery of the law. Scoundrels dressing them selves up like the pillars of morality to

CH. V. Sequel of the foregoing adventure. Gil Blas retires from practice, and from the neighbourhood of Valladolid. 58

undermine its very foundation! I shall wish you much joy if you are condemned to nothing worse than

mowing the salt marsh. When he had impressed it on our convictions that the affair was even more serious

than our first fears, we threw ourselves on his mercy, and implored him to have pity on our tender years, but

his stubborn heart was relentless. He rejected moreover the proposal of relinquishing the necklace, earrings,

and candlestick; nay, he was deaf to the rhetoric of my ring: perhaps because I offered it before too many

witnesses: in short, he was the most obdurate dog of his kennel. He ordered my companions to be handcuffed,

and sent us in a body to the public prison. As we were on our way, one of the marshalmen acquainted me that

Camilla's old vixen, suspecting us not to be licensed scouts of justice, had dogged us to the tavern; and

We were searched in the first instance. Away went the necklace, the ear rings, and the candlestick. They

picked my pocket of my ring, and my ruby of the Philippine Isles; without even sparing the few fees I had

received in the forenoon for my prescriptions: so that it was plain trade was carried on by the same firm at

Valladolid as at Astorga, and that all these reformers held the same creed. While they rifled me of my trinkets

and money, the lord in waiting of the patrole made known our adventure to the inferior agents of legal rapine.

The trespass appeared so audacious that the majority voted it capital. A few kind souls were of opinion that

we might come off for two hundred lashes a piece, with a few years on board the galleys. Waiting his

worship's sentence, we were locked up in a cell, where we lay upon straw, spread over our stable like a litter

for horses. There might we have foddered for an age, and at last have been turned out to grass in the galleys,

if on the morrow Signor Manuel Ordonnez had not got wind of our affair, and determined to release Fabricio;

which he could not do without making a general gaol delivery. He was a man of the first credit in the town:

his interest was exerted for us, and partly by his own influence, and partly by that of his friends, he obtained

our enlargement at the end of three days. But the period of delivery is always moulting time with gaol birds;

the candlestick, the necklace, the ear rings, my ring, and the ruby, all was left behind. One could not help

As soon as we were at liberty we returned to our masters. Doctor Sangrado received me kindly; My poor Gil

Blas, said he, it was but this morning I was acquainted with thy misfortune. I was just setting about an active

canvass for thee. We must derive comfort from adversity, my friend, and attach ourselves more than ever to

the practice of physic. I affirmed that to be my intention; and in truth I laid about me. Far from wanting

employment, it happened by a kind providence, as my master had foretold, to be a very sickly season. The

smallpox and a malignant fever took alternate possession of the town and the suburbs. All the physicians in

Valladolid had their share of business, and we not the least. We saw eight or ten patients a day; so that the

kettle was kept on the simmer, and the blood in the action of transpiring. But things will happen cross; they

died to a man, either by our fault or their own. If their case was hopeless, we were not to blame; and if it was

not hopeless, they were. Three visits to a patient was the length of our tether. About the second, we

sometimes ran foul of the undertaker; or when we had been more fortunate than usual, the patient had got no

further than the point of death. As I was but a young physician, not yet hardened to the trade of an assassin, I

grieved over the melancholy issue of my own theory and practice. Sir, said I, one evening to Doctor

Sangrado, I call heaven to witness on the spot that I have never strayed from your infallible method; and yet I

have never saved a patient: one would think they died out of spite, and were on the other side of the great

medical question. This very day I came across two of them, going into the country to be buried. My good lad,

replied he, my experience nearly comes to the same point. It is but seldom I have the pleasure of curing my

kind and partial friends. If I had less confidence in my principles, I should think my prescriptions had set their

faces against the work they were intended to perform. If you will take a hint, sir, replied I, we had better vary

our system. Let us give, by way of experiment, chemical preparations to our patients; the worst they can do is

to tread in the steps of our pure dilutions and our phlebotomizing evacuations. I would willingly give it a

trial, rejoined he, if it were a matter of indifference, but I have published on the practice of bleeding and the

use of drenches: would you have me cut the throat of my own fame as an author! Oh! you are in the right,

resumed I; our enemies must not gain this triumph over us; they would say that you were out of conceit with

your own systems, and would ruin your reputation for consistency. Perish the people, perish rather our

CH. V. Sequel of the foregoing adventure. Gil Blas retires from practice, and from the neighbourhood of Valladolid. 59

nobility and clergy! But let us go on in the old path. After all, our brethren of the faculty, with all their

tenderness about bleeding, have no patent for longevity any more than ourselves; and we may set off their

We went on working double tides, and did so much execution, that in less than six weeks we made as many

widows and orphans as the siege of Troy. The plague must have got into Valladolid by the number of

funerals. Day after day came some father or other to know what was become of his son, who was last seen in

our hands; or else a stupid fellow of an uncle, who had a foolish hankering after a deceased nephew. With

respect to the nephews and sons, on whose uncles and fathers we had equalized our system of destruction,

they thought that least said was soonest mended. Husbands were altogether on their good behaviour, they

would not split a hair about the loss of a wife or two. The real sufferers to whose reproaches we were

exposed, were sometimes quite savage in their grief; without being mealymouthed in their expressions, they

called us blockheads and assassins. I was concerned at their bad language; but my master, who was up to

every circumstance, listened to their abuse with the utmost indifference. Yet I might have grown as callous as

himself to popular reproach, if heaven, interposing its shield between the invalids of Valladolid and one of

their scourges, had not providentially raised up an incident to disgust me with medicine, which from the

The idle fellows about town assembled every day in our neighbourhood for a game at tennis. Among the

number was one of those professed bullies who set up for great Dons, and are the complete cocks of the

tenniscourt. He was a Biscayan, and assumed the title of Don Roderic de Mondragon. His age might be

about thirty. His size was somewhat above the common, but he was lean and bony. Besides two sparkling

little eyes rolling about in his head, and throwing out defiance against all bystanders, a very broad nose came

in between a pair of red whiskers, which turned up like a hook as high as the temples. His phraseology was so

rough and uncouth that the very sound of his voice would throw a quiet man into an ague. This tyrant over

both the rackets and the game was lord paramount in all disputes between the players; and there was no

appeal from his decisions, but at the risk of receiving a challenge the next day. Precisely as I have drawn

Signor Don Roderic, whom the Don in the foreground of his titles could never make a gentleman, Signor Don

Roderic was sweet upon the mistress of the tenniscourt. She was a woman of forty, in good circumstances,

as charming as forty can well be, just entering on the second year of her widowhood. I know not how he

made himself agreeable; certainly not by his exterior recommendations, but probably by that within which

passeth show. However that might be, she took a fancy to him, and began to turn her thoughts towards the

holy state of matrimony; but while that great event was in agitation, for the punishment of her sins she was

taken with a malignant fever, and with me for a physician. Had the disorder been ever so slight, my practice

would have made a serious job of it. At the expiration of four days there was not a dry eye in the

tenniscourt. The mistress joined the outward bound colony of my patients, and her family administered to

her effects. Don Roderic, distracted at the loss of his mistress, or rather disappointed of a good establishment,

was not satisfied with fretting and fuming at me, but swore he would run me through the body, or even frown

me into a nonentity. A goodnatured neighbour apprised me of this vow, with a caution to keep at home, for

fear of coming across this devil of a fellow. This warning, though taken in good part, was a source of anxiety

and apprehension. I was eternally fancying the enraged Biscayan laying siege to the outworks of my citadel.

There was no getting a moment's respite from alarm. This circumstance weaned me from the practice of

medicine, and I thought of nothing but deliverance from my horrors. On went my embroidered suit once

more. Taking leave of my master, who did all he could to detain me, I got out of town with the dawn, not

CH. VI. His route from Valladolid, with a description of his fellowtraveller. 60

I TRUDGED on at a great rate, and looked behind from time to time, to see if that dreadful Biscayan was not

following me. My imagination was so engrossed by the fellow, that he haunted me in every tree and bush; my

heart was in my mouth for fear at every footfall. But I took courage again at the distance of about a league,

and went on more gently towards Madrid, whither I proposed directing my steps. I had no attachment to

Valladolid. All my regret was at tearing myself from Fabricio, my dear Pylades, of whom I had not so much

as taken my leave. It was no grievance to give up physic; on the contrary, I prayed heaven to forgive me for

having tampered with it. Yet I did not count over the contents of my purse with less pleasure, because they

were the wages of murder. In this I took after those ladies who retire with a fortune to lead pious lives, and

think it hard if they may not fatten religiously on the hard earnings of their libertine profession. I had, in rials,

somewhere about the value of five ducats, and this was the sum total of my property. With these I designed

repairing to Madrid, where I had no doubt of finding a good service. Besides, I wished above all things to be

While I was recollecting what I had heard of it, and enjoying beforehand the pleasures it affords, I heard the

voice of a man coming after me, and singing till he had scraped his throat. He had a wallet on his back, a

guitar suspended from his neck, and a long sword by his side. He got on at such a rate, as soon to overtake

me. Who should it be but one of the two journeymen barbers with whom I had been in gaol for the adventure

of the ring. We knew one another at once, though we had shifted our dresses, and were in a thousand marvels

at meeting so unexpectedly on the highway. If I testified my delight at having such a fellowtraveller, he

seemed on his side to feel an excess of rapture at the renewal of our acquaintance. I told him why I had left

Valladolid, and he trusted his own secret to me in return, by stating himself to have had a little brush with his

master, on which they had taken an everlasting leave of one another. Had it been my pleasure, continued he,

to have taken up my abode longer in Valladolid, ten shops would take me in for one that would have turned

me out; since, vanity apart, I may safely say there is not a barber in all Spain better qualified to shave all sorts

of beards, with the grain or against the grain, and to curl a pair of whiskers. But I could no longer fight

against a hankering after my native place, whence I departed full ten years since. I wish to inhale a little of

my own country air, and to learn the present situation of my family. I shall be among them the day after

tomorrow, at a place called Olm�do, a populous village on this side of Segovia.

I resolved on accompanying this barber home, and going to Segovia for the chance of a cast to Madrid. We

began entertaining one another with indifferent subjects as we went along. The young fellow was perfectly

goodhumoured, with a ready wit. After an hour's conversation, he asked me if I was hungry. I referred him

to the first house of call for my answer. To stop dilapidations till we get there, said he, we may renew our

term by a little breakfast from my wallet. When I am on a journey I am always my own caterer. None of your

woollen drapery, nor linen drapery, nor any of your frippery or trumpery. I hate ostentation. My wallet

contains nothing but a little exercise for my grinders, my razors, and a washball. I extolled his discretion,

and agreed with all my heart to the bargain he proposed. My appetite was keen and sharp set for a

comfortable meal; after what he had said, I could expect no less. We drew aside a little from the high road,

and sat down upon the grass. There my little journeyman barber laid out his provisions, consisting of five or

six onions, with some scraps of bread and cheese; but the best lot in the auction was a little leathern bottle,

full, as he said, of choice, delicate wine. Though the solids were not very relishing, the calls of hunger did not

allow either of us to be dainty; and we emptied the bottle too, containing about two pints of a wine one could

not recommend without some remorse of conscience. We then rose from table and set out again on the tramp

in high glee. The barber, who had heard some little snatches of my story from Fabricio, entreated me to

furnish him with the whole from the best authority. It was impossible to refuse so munificent a host; I

therefore gave him the satisfaction he required. In my turn I called on him, as an acknowledgement of my

frankness, to communicate the leading circumstances of his terrestrial peregrinations. Oh! as for my

adventures, exclaimed he, they are scarcely worth re cording, a mere catalogue of common occurrences.

Nevertheless, since we have nothing else to do, I will run over the narrative, such as it is. At the same time he

CH. VI. His route from Valladolid, with a description of his fellowtraveller. 61

I TAKE up my tale from the origin of things. My grandfather, Ferdinand Perez de la Fuenta, barbergeneral

to the village of Olm�do for fifty years, died, leaving four sons. The eldest, Nicholas, succeeded to the shop,

and lathered himself into the good graces of the customers. Bertrand, the next, having taken a fancy to trade,

set up for a mercer; and Thomas, who was the third, turned schoolmaster. As for the fourth, by name Pedro,

feeling within himself the high destinies of learning, he sold a dirty acre or two which fell to his share, and

went to settle at Madrid, where he hoped one day to distinguish himself by his genius and erudition. The

other three brothers would not part; they fixed their quarters at Olm�do, marrying peasants' daughters, who

brought their husbands very little dowry, except an annual present of a chopping young rustic. They had a

most publicspirited emulation in childbearing. My mother, the barber's wife, favoured the world with a

contribution of six within the first five years of her marriage. I was among the number. My father initiated me

betimes in the mysteries of shaving; and when he saw me grown up to the age of fifteen, laid this wallet

across my shoulders, presented me with a long sword, and said Go, Diego, you are now qualified to gain

your own livelihood; go and travel about. You want a little acquaintance with the world to give you a polish,

and improve you in your art. Off with you! and do not return to Olm�do till you have made the tour of Spain,

nor let me hear of you till that is accomplished. Finishing with this injunction, he embraced me with fatherly

Such were the parting benedictions of my sire. As for my mother, who had more the touch of nature in her

manners, she seemed to feel somewhat at my departure. She dropped a few tears, and even slipped a ducat by

stealth into my hand.. Thus was I sent from Olm�do into the wide world, and took the road of Segovia. I did

not go two hundred yards without stopping to examine my bag. I had a mind to view its contents, and to

know the precise amount of my possessions. There I found a case with two razors, which must have travelled

post over the chins of ten generations, by the evidence of their wear and tear, with a strap to set them, and a

bit of soap. In addition to this, a coarse shirt quite new, a pair of my father's shoes quite old, and what

rejoiced me more than all the rest, a rouleau of twenty rials in a linen bag. Behold the sum total of my

personals. You may conclude master Nicholas, the barber, to have reckoned a good deal on my ingenuity, by

his turning me adrift with so slender a provision. Yet a ducat and twenty rials, by way of fortune, was enough

to turn the head of a young man unaccustomed to money concerns. I fancied my stock of cash inexhaustible;

and pursued my journey in the sun shine of brilliant anticipation, looking from time to time at the hilt of my

rapier, while the blade was striking against the calf of my leg at every step, or tripping up my heels.

In the evening I reached the village of Ataquin�s with a very catholic stomach. I put up at the inn; and, as if I

meant to spend freely, asked, in a lofty tone, what there was for supper. The landlord examined my

pretensions with his eye, and finding according to what cloth my coat was cut, said with true publican's

civility Yes, yes, my worthy master, you shall have no reason to complain; we will treat you like a lord.

With this assurance, he showed me into a little room, whither he brought me, a quarter of an hour afterwards,

a ragout made of a great he cat, on which I feasted with as famous an appetite as if it had been hare or rabbit.

This excellent dish was washed down by so choice a wine, that the king had no better in his cellars. I found

out, however, that it was pricked; but that was no hindrance to my doing it as much honour as the he cat. The

last article in this entertainment for a lord was a bed better adapted to drive sleep away than to invite it.

Figure it to yourself about the width of a coffin, and so short that I could not stretch my legs, though none of

the longest. Besides, there was neither mattress nor feather bed, but merely a little straw sewed up in a sheet

folded double, which was laid down clean for every hundredth traveller, and served the other ninetynine,

one after another, without washing. Nevertheless, in such a bed, with a stomach distended to a surfeit by

fricasseed cat, and then raked by sour wine, thanks to youth and a good constitution, I slept soundly, and

On the following day when I had breakfasted, and paid the reckoning as I had been treated, like a lord, I made

but one stage to Segovia. On my arrival, I had the good fortune to find a shop, where they took me in for my

board and lodging; but I staid there only six months; a journeyman barber, with whom I got acquainted, was

going to Madrid, and drew me in to set off with him. I had no difficulty in procuring a situation on the same

footing as at Segovia. I got into a shop of the very best custom. It is true, it was near the church of the Holy

Cross, and that the neighbourhood of the Prince's Theatre brought a great deal of business. My master, two

stirring fellows, and myself, could scarcely lather the chins of the people who came to be shaved. They were

of all trades and conditions; among the rest, players and authors. One day, two persons of the last description

happened to meet. They began conversing about the poets and pieces in vogue, when one of them mentioned

my uncle's name: a circumstance which drew my attention more particularly to their discourse. Don Juan de

Zavaleta, said one, will never do any good as an author. A man of a cold genius, without a spark of fancy! he

has written himself down at a terrible rate by his last publication. And Louis Velez de Guevara, said the

other, what has he done? A fine work to bring before the public! Was there ever anything so wretched? They

mentioned I know not how many poets besides, whose names I have forgotten: I only recollect that they said

no good of them. As for my uncle, they made a more honourable mention of him, agreeing that he was a

personage of merit, Yes, said one, Don Pedro de la Fuenta is an excellent author; there is a sly humour in his

compositions, blended with solid sense, which communicates an attic poignancy to their general effect. I am

not surprised at his popularity both in court and city, nor at the pensions settled on him by the great. For

many years past, said the other, he has enjoyed a very large income. He lives at the Duke de Medina Coeli's

table, and has an apartment in his house, so that he is at no expense: he must be very well in the world.

I lost not a syllable of what these poets were saying about my uncle. We had learnt in the family, that he

made a noise in Madrid by his works; some travellers, passing through Olm�do, had told us so; but as he took

no notice of us, and seemed to have weaned himself from all natural ties, we on our side lived in a state of

perfect indifference about him. Yet nature will prevail: as soon as I had heard that he was in a fair way, and

had learned where he lived, I was tempted to go and call upon him. One thing staggered me a little; the literati

had styled him Don Pedro. This don was an awkward circumstance: I had my doubts whether he might not be

some other poet of the name, and not my uncle. Yet that apprehension did not damp my ardour. I thought he

might have been ennobled for his wit, and determined to pay him a visit. For this purpose, with my master's

leave, I tricked myself out one morning as well as I could, and sallied from our shop, a little proud of being

nephew to a man who had gained so high a character by his genius. Barbers are not the most diffident people

in the world. I began to conceive no mean opinion of myself; and riding the high horse with all the arrogance

of greatness, inquired my way to the Duke de Medina Coeli's palace. I rang at the gate, and said, I wanted to

speak with Signor Don Pedro de la Fuenta. The porter pointed with his finger to a narrow staircase at the fag

end of the court, and answered Go up there, then knock at the first door on your right. I did as he directed

me; and knocked at a door. It was opened by a young man, whom I asked if those were the apartments of

Signor Don Pedro de la Fuenta. Yes, answered he, but you cannot speak to him at present. I should be very

glad, said I, just to say, How are you? I bring him news of his family. An you brought him news of the pope,

replied he, I could not introduce you just now. He is writing, and while his wits are at work, he must not be

disturbed. He will not be able to receive company till noon; take a turn, and come back about that time.

I departed, and walked about town all the morning, incessantly meditating on the reception my uncle would

give me. I think, said I within myself; he will be overjoyed to see me. I measured his feelings by my own, and

prepared myself for a very affecting discovery. I returned punctually to the appointed hour. You are just in

time, said the servant: my master was going out. Wait here a moment: I will announce you. With these words,

he left me in the antechamber. He returned almost immediately, and showed me into his master's room. The

face struck me all at once as a family likeness. To be sure he was the very image of my uncle Thomas; they

might have been taken for twins. I bowed down to the ground, and introduced myself as the son of Master

Nicholas de la Fuenta, the barber of Olm�do. I likewise informed him, that I had been working at my father's

trade in Madrid, for these three weeks, as a journeyman, and intended making the tour of Spain to complete

my education. While I was speaking, my uncle was evidently in a brown study. He seemed to doubt whether

he should disown me at once, or get rid of me with some little sacrifice to decency. The latter course he

adopted. Affecting the affable: Well, my good kinsman, how are your father and your uncles? Do they get on

in the world? I began thereupon by laying before him the family knack at propagation. All the children, male

and female, called over by their names, with their godfathers and godmothers included in the list! He took no

extravagant interest in the particulars of my tale; but leading to his own purposes, Diego, replied he, I am

quite of your mind. You should go from place to place, and see a variety of practice. I would not have you

tarry longer at Madrid: it is a very dangerous residence for youth; you may get into bad habits, my sweet

fellow. Other towns will suit you better; the state of society in the provinces is more patriarchal and

philosophical. Determine on emigration; and when your departure is fixed, come and take your leave. I will

contribute a pistole to the tour of Spain. With this kind assurance, he handed me out of the room, and sent me

I had not worldly wisdom enough to find out that he wanted to get quit of me. I went back to our shop, and

gave my master an account of the visit I had paid. He looked no deeper than myself into Signor Don Pedro's

motives, and observed: I cannot help differing from your worthy uncle, so far from advising you to travel the

provinces, the real thing would be, in my opinion, to give you a comfortable settlement in this city. He is

hand in glove with the first people; it is an easy matter for him to establish you in a great family; and that is a

for tune at once. Struck with this lucky discovery, which seemed to settle the point without difficulty, I called

on my uncle again two days afterwards, and made a proposal to him for a situation about some leading

character at court. But the hint was not taken kindly. A proud man, living at free quarters among the great,

and dining with them in a family party, did not exactly wish that, while he was sitting at my lord's table, his

nephew should be a guest in the servants' hall. Little Diego might bring a scandal on Signor Don Pedro. He

had no hesitation, therefore, in fairly turning me out of doors, and that with a flea in my ear. What, you little

rascal, said he in a fit of extravagance, do you mean to relinquish your calling? Begone, I consign you to the

reptile whose pernicious counsels will be your ruin. Take your leave of these premises, and never set your

foot on them again, or you shall have the reception you deserve! I was absolutely stunned at this language,

and still more at the peremptory tone my uncle assumed. With tears in my eyes I withdrew, quite overcome

by his severity. Yet, as I had always been lively and confident in my temper, I soon wiped away my tears. My

grief was even turned into resentment, and I determined to take no further notice of this unnatural relative,

My attention was henceforth directed to the cultivation of my professional talent; I was quite a plodding

fellow at my trade. I scraped away all day; and in the evening, by way of relief to my scraping, I twanged the

guitar. My master on that instrument was an old Senor Escudero whom I shaved. He taught me music in

return; and he was an adept. To be sure he had formerly been a chorister in a cathedral. His name was Marcos

de Obregon. He was a man of the world, with good natural parts and acquired knowledge, which jointly

induced him to fix on me as an adopted son. He was engaged as an attendant on a physician's lady, resident

within thirty yards of our house. I went to him in the evening, when shop was shut, and we two, sitting on the

threshold of the door, made up a little concert not displeasing to the neighbourhood. It was not that our voices

were very fine; but in thrumming on the catgut, we made a pretty regular accompaniment to our duet, and

filled up the harmony sufficiently for the gratification of our hearers. Our music was particularly agreeable to

Donna Mergelina, the physician's wife; she came into the passage to hear us, and sometimes encored us in her

favourite airs. Her husband did not interfere with her amusement. Though a Spaniard and in years, he was not

possessed with jealousy; besides, his profession took up all his time; and as he came home in the evening,

worn out with his numerous visits, he went to bed at an early hour, without troubling himself about his wife

or our concerts. Possibly, if he thought about them at all, he might consider them as little likely to produce

dangerous consequences. He had an additional security in his wife. Mergelina was young and handsome with

a witness; but of so fierce a modesty, that she started at the very shadow of a man. How could he take

umbrage at an amusement of so harmless and decorous a nature? He gave us leave to sing our hearts out.

One evening, as I came to the physician's door, intending to take my usual recreation, I found the old squire

waiting for me. He took me by the hand: saying that he wished to take a little walk with me before we struck

up our little concert. At the same time he drew me aside into a bystreet, where, finding an opportunity of

opening his mind: Diego, my good lad, said he with a melancholy air, I want to give you a hint in private. I

much fear, my good and amiable youth, that we shall both have reason to repent of beguiling our evenings

with little musical parties at my master's door. Rely on my sincere friendship: I do not grudge your lessons in

singing and on the guitar; but if I could have foreseen the storm now brewing, in the name of charity! I would

have selected some other spot to communicate my instructions. This address alarmed me. I entreated the

gentle squire to be more explicit, and to tell me what we had to fear; for I was no Hector, and the tour of

Spain was not yet finished. I will relate to you, replied he, what it concerns you to know, that you may take

When I got into the service of the physician, about a year ago, he said one morning, after having introduced

me to his wife: There, Marcos, you see your mistress; that is the lady you are to accompany in all her

peregrinations. I was smitten with Donna Mergelina: she was lovely in the extreme, a model for an artist, and

her principal attraction was the pleasantness of her deportment. Honoured sir, replied I to the physician, it is

too great a happiness to be in the train of so charming a lady. My answer was taken amiss by Mergelina, who

said rather crustily, A pleasant gentleman this! He is perfectly free and easy. Believe me! His fine speeches

may go a begging for me. These words, dropped from such lovely lips, seemed rather inconsistent; the

manners and ideas of bumpkins and dairymaids coupled with all the graces of the most lovely woman in the

world! As for her husband, he was used to her ways; and, hugging himself on the unrivalled character of his

rib, Marcos, said he, my wife is a miracle of chastity. Then, observing her put on her veil, and make herself

ready to go to mass, he told me to attend on her at church. We were no sooner in the street than we met, and it

was no wonder, blades who, struck with Donna Mergelina's genteel carriage, told her a thousand flattering

tales as they passed by. She was not backward in her answers; but silly and illtimed, beyond what you can

conceive. They were all in amaze, and could not imagine how a woman should take it amiss to be

complimented. Why really! madam, said I to her at first, you had better be silent, or shut your ears to their

addresses, than reply with asperity. No, no, replied she: I will teach these coxcombs that I am not a woman to

put up with impertinence. In short, her absurdity went so far, that I could not help telling her my mind, at the

hazard of her displeasure. I gave her to understand, yet with the greatest possible caution, that she was unjust

to nature, whose handiwork she marred by her preposterous ferocity; that a woman of mild and polished

manners might inspire love without the aid of beauty; whereas the loveliest of the sex, divested of female

softness, was in danger of becoming the public scorn. To this ratiocination, I added collateral arguments,

always directed to the amendment of her manners. After having moralized to no purpose, I was afraid my

freedom might exasperate my mistress, and draw upon me some taunting repartee. Nevertheless she did not

mutiny against my advice; but silently rendered it of no avail, and thus we went on from day to day.

I was weary of pointing out her errors to no purpose, and gave her up to the ferocious temperament of her

nature. Yet, could you think it? the savage humour of that proud woman is entirely changed within these two

months. She has a kind word for all the world, and manners the most accommodating. It is no longer the

same Mergelina who gave such homely answers to the compliments of her swains: she is become assailable

by flattery; loves to be told she is handsome, that a man cannot look at her without paying for it: her ears itch

for fine speeches, and she is become a very woman. Such a change is almost inconceivable: and the best of

the joke is, that you are the worker of this unparalleled miracle. Yes, my dear Diego, it is you who have

transformed Donna Mergelina; you have softened down the tigress into a domestic animal; in a word, you

have made her feel. I have observed it more than once; and never trust my knowledge of the sex, if she is not

desperately in love with you. Such, my dear boy, is the melancholy news I have to communicate, the

I do not see, said I in my turn to the old man, that there is anything so melancholy in this accident, or any

peculiar awkwardness in being the object of a pretty woman's partiality. Ah! Diego, replied he, you argue like

a young man: you only see the bait, without guarding against the hook: pleasure is your lure; while my

thoughts are directed to the unpleasant circumstances attending it. Murder will out. If you go on singing at

our door, you will provoke Mergelina's passion; and she probably, losing all command over herself; will

betray her weakness to her husband, Doctor Oloroso. That wretched husband, so complying now that he

thinks there is no ground for jealousy, will run wild, take signal vengeance upon her, and perhaps play some

dog's trick or other to you and me. Well, then! rejoined I, your reasons shall be conclusive with me, and your

sage counsels my rule. Lay down the line of conduct I am to adopt for the prevention of any lefthanded

catastrophe. We will have no more concerts, was his peremptory decree. Do not show yourself any more to

my mistress: when the sight of you does not inflame her, she will recover her composure. Stay within doors: I

will call in upon you, and we will torture the guitar with impunity. With all my heart, said I, and I will never

set my foot again in your premises. In good truth, I was determined to serenade no longer before the

physician's door, but henceforth to keep within the precincts of my shop, since my attractions as a man were

In the mean time good Squire Marcos, with all his prudence, experienced in the course of a few days that the

plan he had devised to quench Donna Mergelina's flame produced a directly opposite effect. The lady on the

second night not hearing me sing, asked why we had discontinued our concerts, and the reason of my

absence. He told her I was so busy as not to have a moment to spare for relaxation. She seemed satisfied with

that excuse, and for three days longer bore the disappointment of all her hopes like a heroine; but at the end

of that period, my martyr to the tender passion lost all patience, and said to her conductor You are

playing false with me, Marcos; Diego has not discontinued his visits without a cause. This mystery must be

unravelled. Speak, I command you; conceal nothing from me. Madam, answered he, making use of another

subterfuge, since the truth must be told, it has often happened to him to find the cloth taken away at home

after the concert; he cannot run the risk any longer of going to bed without his supper. What, without his

supper! exclaimed she in an agony, why did not you tell me so sooner? Go to bed without his supper! Oh! the

poor little sufferer! Go to him this instant, and let him come again this evening; he shall not go home starving

What do I hear? said the squire, affecting astonishment at this language; oh heaven, what a reverse! Is this

you, madam, and are these your sentiments? Welladay! Since when are you so compassionate and

tenderhearted? Since, replied she significantly, since you have lived in this house, or rather since you

disapproved my disdainful manners, and have laboured to soften the acrimony of my temper. But, alas! added

she, in a melting mood, I have gone from one extreme to the other. Proud and insensible as I was, I am

become too susceptible, too tender. I am enamoured of your young friend Diego, and I can not help myself;

his absence, far from allaying my ardour, only adds fuel to the fire. Is it possible, resumed the old man, that a

young fellow with neither face nor person should have inspired so strong a passion? I could make allowance

for your feelings, if they had been set afloat by some nobleman of distinguished merit Ah! Marcos,

interrupted Mergelina, I am not like the rest of my sex; or rather, spite of your long experience, your

penetration is but shallow if you fancy merit to have much share in our choice. Judging by myself, we all leap

before we look. Love is a mental derangement, forcibly drawing all our views and attachments into one

vortex; a species of hydrophobia. Have done then with your hints that Diego is not worthy of my tenderness;

that he has it is enough, to invest him with a thousand perfections too aetherial for your gross sight, and

perhaps too unsubstantial for any but a lover's perception. In vain you disparage his features or his stature; in

my eyes he was created to undo, and encircled by the hand of nature with the glories of the opening day. Nay,

more, there is a thrilling sweetness in his voice; his touch on the guitar has the taste of an amateur, and the

execution of a professor. But, madam, subjoined Marcos, do you consider who Diego is? The meanness of his

station My own is very little better, interrupted she again; though were I of noble birth, it would make no

The result of that conference was that the squire, concluding he should make no impression on the mind of

his mistress, gave over struggling with her obstinacy, as a skilful pilot runs before the storm, though it carries

him out to sea from his intended port. He did more: to satisfy his patroness he paid me a visit, took me aside,

and after having related what had passed between them You see, Diego, said he, that we cannot dispense

with the performance of our concerts at Mergelina's door. Absolutely, my friend, that lady must see you

again; otherwise she may commit some act of desperation fatal to her good name. I was not inexorable, but

answered Marcos that I would attend with my guitar early in the evening; and dispatched him to his mistress

with the happy tidings. He executed his office, and the impassioned dame was out of her wits with joy, in the

A most disagreeable circumstance, however, was very near disappointing her in that hope. I could not leave

home before night, and for my sins, it was dark as pitch. I went groping along the street, and had got, may be,

half way, when down from a window came upon my head the contents of a perfuming pan, which did not

tickle my olfactory nerves very pleasantly. I may say that not a whiff was wasted, so exactly had the giver

taken measure of the receiver. In this situation I was at a loss on what to resolve: to go back by the way I

came, what an exhibition before my comrades! It was surrendering myself to all their nasty witticisms. Then

again, go to Mergelina in such a glorious trim, that hurt my feelings on the other side. I determined, at length,

to get on towards the physician's. The old usher was waiting for me at the door. He said that Doctor Oloroso

was gone to bed, and we might amuse ourselves as we liked. I answered that the first thing was to purify my

drapery, at the same time relating my misfortune. He seemed to feel for me, and showed me into a hall where

his mistress was sitting. As soon as the lady got wind of my adventure, and had confirmed the testimony of

her nose by the evidence of her eyes, she mourned over me as grievously as if my miseries had been mortal;

then, apostrophising the absent cause of my foul array, she uttered a thousand imprecations. Well, but

madam! said Marcos, do moderate this ecstacy of grief; consider that such casualties will happen, there is no

occasion to take on so bitterly. Why, exclaimed she with vehemence, why would you debar me from the

privilege of weeping over the injuries of this tender lamb, this dove without gall, who does not so much as

murmur at the affront he has sustained? Alas! why am I not a man at this moment to avenge him!

She uttered numberless soothing expressions besides, to mark distinctly the excess of her devotion, and her

actions corresponded with her words; for while Marcos was employed in wiping me down with a towel, she

ran into her chamber and brought out a box furnished with every variety of perfumes. She burned

sweetsmelling drugs, and perfumed my clothes with them, after which she drenched me in a deluge of

essences. The fumigation and aspersion ended, this bountiful lady went herself and fetched from the kitchen

bread, wine, and some good slices of roast mutton, set by on purpose for me. She forced me to eat, and taking

a pleasure in waiting on me, sometimes carved for me, and some times filled my glass, in spite of all that

Marcos and myself could do to anticipate her condescension. When I had done supper, the gentlemen of the

orchestra struck the key note, and tuned their sweet voices to the pitch of their guitars. We played and sung to

the heart's delight of Mergelina. To be sure we took care to carol none but amorous ditties; and as we sung, I

every now and then leered at her with such a roguish meaning, as to throw oil upon the fire, for the game

began to be interesting. The concert, though the acts were long, was not tedious. As for the lady, to whom

hours seemed to fly like seconds, she could have been content to exhaust the night in listening, if the old

squire, with whom the seconds seemed to lag like hours, had not hinted how late it was. She gave him the

trouble of enforcing his moral on the lapse of time by at least ten repetitions. But she was in the hands of a

man not to be turned aside from his purpose, he let her have no rest till I was gone. Sensible and provident as

he was, seeing his mistress given up to a mad passion, he dreaded lest our harmony should be resolved by

some discord. His fears were ominous: the physician, whether his mind misgave him of foul play, or the spirit

of jealousy, hitherto on its good behaviour, had a mind to harass him gratuitously, bethought himself of

quarrelling with our concerts. He did more, he put a broad negative upon them; and, without assigning his

reasons for acting in this violent way, declared that he would suffer no more strangers to come about his

Marcos acquainted me with this mortifying declaration, particularly levelled against my rising hopes. I had

begun bobbing at this dainty cherry, and did not like to lose my game. Nevertheless, to act the part of a

faithful reporter and true historian, I must own my impatience did not affect my health or spirits. Not so with

Mergelina, her feelings were more alive than ever. My dear Marcos, said she to her usher, it is only from you

that I look for succour. Contrive, I beseech you, that I may see Diego in private. What do you require? asked

the old man with a reproachful accent. I have been but too indulgent to you. I am not a person to crown your

wanton wishes at the expense of my master's honour, your good fame, and my own eternal infamy; the

infamy of a man whose past life has been one continued series of faithful service and exemplary conduct. I

had rather leave the family than stay in it on such scandalous conditions. Alas! Marcos, interrupted the lady,

frightened out of her wits at these last words, you wring my heart by talking in this manner. Obdurate man!

Can you bear the thought of sacrificing her who lays all her present agony to your account? Give me back my

former pride, and that savage soul you have taken from me. Why am I no longer happy in my very

imperfections? I might now have been at peace, but your rash counsels have robbed me of the repose I then

enjoyed. You, the corrector of my manners, have tampered with my morals But why do I rave, unhappy

wretch as I am? why upbraid you thus wrongfully? No, my guardian angel, you are not the fatal source of my

miseries; my evil destiny had decreed these tortures to await me. Lay not to heart, I conjure you on my knees,

these transports of a disordered imagination. Oh mercy! my passion drives me mad, have compassion on my

weakness; you are my sole support and stay: if then my life is not indifferent to you, deny me not your aid.

At these words her tears flowed in fresh torrents, and stifled her lugubrious accents. She took out her

handkerchief, and throwing it over her face, fell into a chair, like a person overcome by her affliction. Old

Marcos, who was perhaps one of the most tractable gobetweens in the world, could no longer steel his heart

against so touching a spectacle. Pierced to the quick, he even mingled his tears with those of his mistress, and

spoke to her in a softened tone Ah! madam, why are you thus bewitching! I cannot hold out against your

sorrowful complaints, my virtue yields under the pressure of my pity. I promise you all the relief in my

power. No longer do I marvel at the oblivious influence of passion over duty, since mere sympathy can

mislead my footsteps from its thorny paths. Thus did this pander, whose past life had been one continued

series of faithful service and exemplary conduct, sell himself to the devil to feed Mergelina's illicit flame.

One morning he came and talked over the whole business with me, saying at his departure, that he had a

scheme in his head, to bring about a private interview between us. At the thought my hopes were all

rekindled, but they glimmered tremblingly in the socket at a piece of news I heard two hours afterwards. A

journeyman apothecary in the neighbourhood, one of our customers, came in to be shaved. While I was

making ready to trim his bushy honours, he said Master Diego, do you know anything about your friend,

the old usher, Marcos de Obregon? Is he not going to leave Doctor Oloroso? I said, No. But he is though,

replied he; he will get his dismission this very day. His master and mine were talking about it just now in my

hearing, and their conversation was to the following effect: Signor Apuntador, said the physician, I have a

favour to beg of you. I am not easy about an old usher of mine, and should like to place my wife under the

eye of a trusty, strict, and vigilant duenna. I understand you, interrupted my master. You want Dame

Melancia, my wife's directress, and indeed mine for the last six weeks, since I have been a widower. Though

she would be very useful to me in housewifery, I give her up to you, from a paramount regard to your honour.

You may rely upon her for the security of your brow; she is the phoenix of the duenna tribe a springgun

and a man trap set in the purlieus of female chastity. During twelve whole years that she was about my wife,

whose youth and beauty, you know, were not without their attractions, I never saw the least semblance of

manhood within my doors. No, no! by all the powers! That game was not so easily played. And yet I must let

you know that the departed saint, heaven rest her soul! had in the outset a great hankering after the delights of

the flesh; but Dame Melancia cast her in a new mould, and regenerated her to virtue and selfdenial. In short,

such a guardian of the weaker sex is a treasure, and you will never have done thanking me for my precious

gift. Hereupon the doctor expressed his rapture at the issue of the conference; and they agreed, Signor

This news, which I thought probable, and turned out to be true, disturbed the pleasurable ideas, just beginning

to flow afresh, and renovate my soul. After dinner, Marcos completed the convulsion, by confirming the

young drugpounder's story: My dear Diego, said the good squire, I am heartily glad that Doctor Oloroso has

turned me off; it spares me a world of trouble. Besides that it hurt my feelings to be invested with the office

of a spy, endless must have been the shifts and subterfuges to bring you and Mergelina together in private.

We should have been rarely gravelled! Thanks to heaven, I am set free from all such perplexing cares, to say

nothing of their attendant danger. On your part, my dear boy, you ought to be comforted for the loss of a few

soft moments, which must have been dogged at the heels by a thousand fears and vexations. I relished

Marcos' sermon well enough, because my hopes were at an end, the game was lost. I was not, it must be

confessed, among the number of those stubborn lovers who bear up against every impediment; but though I

had been so, Dame Melancia would have made me let go my hold. The established character of that duenna

would have daunted the adventurous spirit of a knighterrant. Yet, in whatever colours this phoenix of the

duenna tribe might have been painted, I had reason to know, two or three days after wards, that the

physician's lady had unset the mantrap and springgun, and given a stop to this watchdog of lubricity. As I

was going out to shave one of our neighbours, a civil old gentlewoman stopped me in the street, and asked if

my name was Diego de la Fuenta. I said, Yes. That being the case, replied she, I have a little business with

you. Place yourself this evening at Donna Mergelina's door; and when you are there, give a signal, and you

shall be let in. Vastly well! said I, what must the signal be? I can take off a cat to the life: suppose I was to

mew a certain number of times? The very thing, replied this Iris of intrigue; I will carry back your answer.

Your most obedient, Signor Diego! Heaven protect the sweet youth! Ah! you are a pretty one! By St Agnes, I

wish I was but sweet fifteen, I would not go to market for other folks! With this hint, the old procuress

You may be sure this message put me in no small flutter. Where now was the morality of Marcos? I waited

for night with impatience, and, calculating the time of Dr Oloroso's going to bed, took my station at his door.

There I set up my caterwauling, till you might hear me ever so far off, to the eternal honour of the master who

instructed me in that imitative art. A moment after Mergelina opened the door softly with her own dear

hands, and shut it again with me on the inside. We went into the hall, where our last concert had been

performed. It was dimly lighted by a small lamp, which twinkled in the chimney. We sat down side by side,

and began our tender parley, each of us overcome by our emotions, but with this difference; that hers were all

inspired by pleasure, while mine were somewhat tainted by fear. In vain did the divinity of my adorations

assure me that we had nothing to fear from her husband. I felt the access of an ague, which unmanned my

vigour. Madam, said I, how have you eluded the vigilance of your directress? After what I have heard of

Dame Melancia, I could not have conceived it possible for you to contrive the means of sending me any

intelligence, much less of seeing me in private. Donna Mergelina smiled at this remark, and answered: You

will no longer be surprised at our being together tonight, when I tell you what has passed between my

duenna and me. As soon as she came to her place, my husband paid her a thousand compliments, and said to

me: Mergelina, I consign you to the guidance of this wary lady, herself an abstract of all the virtues: in this

glass you may look without a blush, and array yourself in habits of wisdom. This extraordinary personage has

for these twelve years been a light to the ways of an apothecary's wife of my acquaintance; but how has she

been a light to them? why, as ways never were enlightened before: she turned a very slippery piece of

This panegyric, not belied by the austere mien of Dame Melancia, cost me a flood of tears, and reduced me to

despair. I fancied the din of eternal lectures from morning till night, and daily rebukes too harsh to be

endured. In short, I laid my account in a life of wretchedness, beyond the patience of a woman. Keeping no

measures in the expectation of such cruel sufferings, I said bluntly to the duenna, the moment I was alone

with her: You mean, no doubt, to exercise your tyranny most wantonly on my poor person; but I cannot bear

much severity, I warn you beforehand. I give you, moreover, fair notice, that I shall be as savage as you can

be. My heart cherishes a passion, which not all your remonstrances shall tear from it: so you may act

accordingly. Watch me as closely as you please; it is hard if I cannot outwit such an old thing as you. At these

taunting words, I thought this saracen in petticoats was going to give me a specimen of her discipline. But so

far from it, she smoothed her brow, relaxed her surly features, and primming up her mouth into a smile,

promulgated this comfortable doctrine: Your temper charms me, and your frankness calls for a return. We

must have been made for one another. Ah! lovely Mergelina, little do you fathom my character, to be

deceived by the fine compliments of your husband the Doctor, or by my Tartar contour. There never was a

creature more fortified against moral prejudices! My inducement for getting into the service of jealous

husbands is to lend myself to the enjoyments of their pretty wives. Long have I trodden the stage of life in

masquerade; and I may call myself doubly happy, in the spiritual rewards of virtue, and the temporal

indulgences of the opposite side. Between ourselves, mine is the system of all mankind in the long run. Real

virtue is a very expensive article; plated goods look just as well, and are within the reach of all purchasers.

Put yourself under my direction. We will make Doctor Oloroso pay the piper to our dancing, or I am no

duenna. By my troth, he shall go the way of Signor Apuntador and all mankind. There is no reason why the

forehead of a physician should be smoother than the brow of an apothecary. Poor dear Apuntador! What fun

have we had with him, his wife and I! A charming woman, that wife of his! A dear little creature, open to all

mankind, and prejudiced by none! Well! she is at peace, and has not left her fellow behind her! Take my

word, short as her time was, she made the most of it. Let me see how many rampant chaps have been brought

to their bearings in that house, without the dear deluded husband being waked out of his evening's nap! Now,

madam, you may see me in my true light; and assure yourself, whatever might be the abilities of your old

usher, you will not fare the worse for going further. If he was a benefit to you, I shall be a blessing.

You may judge for yourself, Diego, continued Mergelina, how well I took it of the duenna, that she laid

herself open so frankly. I had taken her virtue to be of the impenetrable cast. Look you now, how much

women are liable to be scandalized. But her character of plain dealing won my heart at once. I threw my arms

about her neck in a rapture, which bespoke my warm and tender feelings at the thoughts of such a mother

abbess. I gave her carte blanche of all my private thoughts, and put in for a speedy t�te�t�te with your own

dear self. She met me on my own ground. This very morning she engaged the old woman who spoke to you,

to take the field: she is an old stager, a veteran in the service of the apothecary's wife. But the best of the joke

in this comedy, added she in a paroxysm of laughter, is that Melancia, on my assurance that my husband's

habit is to pass the night without stirring, is gone to bed by his side, and drones out my useless office at this

moment. So much the worse, madam, said I then to Mergelina; your device is more plausible than profitable.

Your husband is very likely to wake, and discover the fraud. He will not discover anything about it, replied

she with no little urgency; set your heart at rest about that, and let not an empty fear poison the fountains of a

pleasure, which ought to drown every vulgar and earthly consideration in the arms of a young lady who is

The old doctor's helpmate, finding that her assurances had little effect upon my courage, left no stone

unturned to put me in heart again; and she had so many encouraging ways with her, that a very coward must

have plucked up a little. My thoughts were all with Jupiter and Alcmena; but at the very moment that the

urchin Cupid, with his train of smiles and antics, was weaving a garland to compliment the crisis of our

endeavours, we were stopped in our career by an importunate knocking at the street door. In a moment, away

flew love and all his covey, like game at the report of a fowlingpiece. Mergelina popped me like an article

of household furniture under the hall table, blew out the lamp, and, by previous agreement with her

governess, in the event of so unlucky an accident, placed herself at the door of her husband's bedchamber. In

the mean time, the knocking continued with reiterated violence, till the whole house resounded. The

physician awoke suddenly, and called Melancia. The duenna flung herself out of bed, though the doctor,

taking her for his wife, begged of her not to disturb herself. She ran to her mistress, who, catching hold of her

in the dark, began calling Melancia! and told her to go and see who was at the door. Madam, answered the

directress, here I am at your service, go to bed again if you please; you shall soon know who it is. During this

parley, Mergelina having undressed, got into bed to the doctor, who had not the least suspicion of the farce

that was playing. To be sure the stage was darkened, and the actresses had very little occasion for a prompter;

one of them was familiar with the boards, and the other wanted only a rehearsal or two to be perfect in her

The duenna, in her nightgown, made her appearance soon after, with a candle in her hand Good doctor,

said she to her master, have the goodness to get up. Our neighbour Fernandez de Buendia, the bookseller, is

in an apoplectic fit: you are sent for; time presses. The physician got on his clothes as fast as he could, and

went out. His wife, in her bedgown, came into the hall with the duenna. They dragged me from under the

table more dead than alive. You have nothing to fear, Diego, said Mergelina, put yourself in proper order. At

the same time she told me how things were in two words. She had half a mind to renew our amorous

intercourse; but the directress knew better. Madam, said she, your husband may possibly be too late to help

the bookseller to the other world, and then he will return immediately. Besides, added she, observing me

benumbed with fright, it would be all lost labour upon this poor youth! He is not in a condition to answer

your demands. You had better send him home, and defer the debate till tomorrow evening. Donna

Mergelina was sorry for the delay, as well knowing that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush; and I flatter

myself she was disappointed at not putting a cuckold's nightcap on the doctor's head.

As for me, less grieved at having drawn a blank in the lottery of love, than rejoiced at getting my neck out of

an halter, I returned to my master's, where I passed the remainder of the night in moralizing on the scene I

had left. For some time, I was in doubt whether to keep my appointment on the following evening. I thought

it was a foolish business from first to last; but the devil, who is always lurking for his prey, or rather taking

possession of us as his lawful property, whispered in my ear that I should be a great fool to pack up my alls

when the prize was falling into my hands. Mergelina too with opening and unfathomable charms! The

exquisite pleasures that awaited me! I determined to stick to my text; and promising myself a larger share of

selfpossession, took my station the next evening at the doctor's door, between eleven and twelve, in a most

spirit stirring humour. The heavens were completely darkened, not a star to prate of my whereabout. I

mewed twice or thrice to give warning of my being in the street; and, as no one answered my signal, I was

not satisfied with going over the old ground, but ran up and down the cat's gamut from bass to treble, and

from treble to bass, just as I used to solfa with a shepherd of Olm�do. I tuned my fundamental bass so

musically, that a neighbour, on his return home, taking me for one of those animals whose mewings I

counterfeited, picked up an unlucky flint lying at his feet, and threw it at me with all his force, saying The

devil fetch that tom cat! I received the blow on my head, and was so stunned for the moment, that I was very

near falling backwards. I found the skin was broken. This was enough in all conscience to give me a surfeit of

gallantry; so that, my passion oozing out with my blood, I made the best of my way homewards, where I

rendered night hideous by my howling, and knocked all the family up. My master probed my wound, and

played the true surgeon on it; he pronounced the consequences to be uncertain. He did all he could to make

them certain; but flesh will heal in spite of the faculty; and there was not a scar remaining in three weeks.

During all this time, I heard not a word from Mergelina. The probability is that Dame Melancia, to wean her

impure thoughts from me, engaged her in some better sport. However, I did not concern myself about the

matter; but left Madrid to continue my tour of Spain, as soon as I found myself perfectly recovered.

SIGNOR Diego de la Fuenta related some other adventures which had since happened to him; but they were

so little worthy of preservation, that I shall pass them by in silence. Yet there was no getting rid of the recital,

which was tedious enough: it lasted as far as Ponte de Duero. We halted in that town the remainder of the

day. Our commons at the inn consisted of a vegetable soup and a roast hare, whose genus and species we

took especial pains to verify. At daybreak on the following morning we resumed our journey, after having

replenished our flask with some very tolerable wine, and our wallet with some pieces of bread, and half the

When we had gone about two leagues we waxed hungry; and, espying at about two hundred yards from the

high road some spreading trees, which threw an agreeable shade over the plain, we made up to the spot, and

rested on our arms. There we met with a man from seven to eight and twenty, who was dipping crusts of

bread into a spring. He had a long sword lying by him on the grass, with a soldier's knapsack, of which he

CH. VIII. The meeting of Gil Blas and his companion with a man soaking crusts of bread at a spring, and the particulars of their conversation. 71

had eased his shoulders. We thought his air and person better than his attire. We accosted him with civility;

and he returned our salutation. He then offered us his crusts, and asked with a smile if we would take potluck

with him. We answered in the affirmative, provided he had no objection to our clubbing our own breakfast,

by way of making the meal more substantial. He agreed to it with the utmost readiness, and we immediately

produced our provisions; which were not unacceptable to the stranger. What is all this, gentlemen, exclaimed

he in a transport of joy, here is ammunition for an army! By your forecast, you must be commissaries or

quartermasters. I do not travel with so much contrivance, for my part; but depend a good deal on the chances

of the road. At the same time, though appearances may be against me, I can say, without vanity, that I

sometimes make a very brilliant figure in the world. Would you believe that princely honours are commonly

bestowed on me, and that I have guards in attendance? I comprehend you, said Diego; you mean to tell us,

you are a player. You guess right, replied the other; I have been an actor for these fifteen years at least. From

my very infancy, I was sent on the boards in children's parts. To deal freely, rejoined the barber, shaking his

head, I do not believe a word of it. I know the players; those gentry do not travel on foot, like you, nor do

they mess with St Anthony. I doubt whether you are anything better than a candlesnuffer. You may, quoth

the son of Thespis, think of me as you please; but my parts, for all that, are in the first line; I play the lovers.

If that be the case, said my companion, I wish you much joy, and am delighted that Signor Gil Blas and

We then began to pick up our crumbs, and to gnaw the precious relics of the hare, bestowing such hearty

smacks upon the bottle, as to empty it very shortly. We were all three so deeply engaged in the great affair of

eating, that we said very little till we had finished, when we resumed our conversation. I wonder, said the

barber to the player, that you should be so much out at elbows. For a theatrical hero, you have but a needy

exterior! I beg pardon if I speak rather freely. Rather freely! exclaimed the actor; Ah! by my troth, you are

not yet acquainted with Melchior Zapata. Heaven be praised, I have no mind to see things in a wrong light.

You do me a pleasure by speaking so confidently: for I love to unbosom myself without reserve. I honestly

own I am not rich. Here, pursued he, showing us his doublet lined with playbills, this is the common stuff

which serves me for linings; and if you are curious to see my wardrobe, you shall not be disappointed. At the

same time he took out of his knapsack a dress, laced with tarnished frippery, a shabby headdress for an hero,

with an old plume of feathers; silk stockings full of holes, and red morocco shoes a great deal the worse for

wear. You see, said he again, that I am very little better than a beggar. That is astonishing, replied Diego: then

you have neither wife nor daughter? I have a very handsome young wife, rejoined Zapata, and yet I might just

as well be without her. Look with awe on the lowering aspect of my horoscope. I married a personable

actress, in the hope that she would not let me die of hunger; and, to my cost, she is cursed with incorruptible

chastity. Who the devil would not have been taken in as well as myself? There was but one virtuous princess

in a whole strolling company, and she, plague take her! fell into my hands. It was throwing with bad luck

most undoubtedly, said the barber. But then, why did not you look out for an actress in the regular theatre at

Madrid? You would have been sure of your mark. You are perfectly in the right, replied the stroller; but the

mischief is, we underlings dare not raise our thoughts to those illustrious heroines. It is as much as an actor of

the prince's company can venture on; nay, some of them are obliged to match with citizens' daughters.

Happily for our fraternity, citizens' daughters nowadays contract theatrical notions; and you may often

meet with characters among them, to the full as eccentric as any bona roba of the greenroom.

Well! but have you never thought, said my fellowtraveller, of getting an engagement in that company? Is it

necessary to be a Roscius for that purpose? That is very well of you! replied Melchior, you are a wag, with

your Roscius! There are twenty performers. Ask the town what it thinks of them, and you will hear a pretty

character of their acting. More than half of them deserve to carry a porter's knot. Yet for all that, it is no easy

matter to get upon the boards. Bribery or interest must make up for the defect of talent. I ought to know what

I say since my debut at Madrid, where I was hissed and catcalled as if the devil had got among the

grimalkins, though I ought to have been received with thunders of applause; for I whined, ranted, and offered

all sorts of violence to nature's modesty: nay, I went so far as to clench my list at the heroine of the piece; in a

word, I adopted the conceptions of all the great performers; and yet that same audience condemned by bell,

CH. VIII. The meeting of Gil Blas and his companion with a man soaking crusts of bread at a spring, and the particulars of their conversation. 72

book, and candle in me, what was thought to be the first style of playing in them. Such is the force of

prejudice! So that, being no favourite with the pit, and not having wherewithal to insinuate myself into the

good graces of the manager, I am on my return to Zamora. There we shall all huddle together again, my wife

and my fellowcomedians, who are making but little of the business. I wish we may not be obliged to beg our

At these words, up rose the stagestruck hero, slung across him his knapsack and his sword, and made his

exit with due theatric pomp: Farewell, gentlemen; may all the gods shower all their bounties on your heads!

And you, answered Diego with corresponding emphasis, may you find your wife at Zamora, softened down

in her relentless virtue, and in comfortable keeping. No sooner had Signor Zapata turned upon his heel, than

he began gesticulating and spouting as he went along. The barber and myself immediately began hissing, to

remind him of his first appearance at Madrid. The goose grated harsh upon his tympanum; he took it for a

repetition of signals from his old friends. But looking behind him, and seeing that we were diverting

ourselves at his expense, far from taking offence at this merry conceit of ours, he joined with good humour in

the joke, and went his way laughing as hard as he could. On our part, we returned the compliment in kind.

WE stopped for the night at a little village between Moyados and Valpuesta; I have forgotten the name: and

the next morning, about eleven, we reached the plain of Olm�do. Signor Gil Blas, said my companion, behold

my native place. So natural are these local attachments, that I can hardly contain myself at the sight of it.

Signor Diego, answered I, a man of so patriotic a soul as you profess to be, might, methinks, have been a

little more florid in his descriptions. Olm�do looks like a city at this distance, and you called it a village; it

cannot be anything less than a corporate town. I beg its township's pardon, replied the barber; but you are to

know that after Madrid, Toledo, Saragossa, and all the other large cities I have passed through in my tour of

Spain, these little ones are mere villages to me. As we got further on the plain, there appeared to be a great

concourse of people about Olm�do: so that, when we were near enough to distinguish objects, we were in no

There were three tents pitched at some distance from each other; and hard by, a bevy of cooks and scullions

preparing an entertainment. Here a party was laying covers on long tables set out under the tents; there a

detachment was crowning the pitchers of Tellus with the gifts of Bacchus. The right wing was making the

pots boil, the left was turning the spits and basting the meat. But what caught my attention more than all the

rest, was a temporary stage of respectable dimensions. It was furnished with pasteboard scenes, painted in a

tawdry style, and the proscenium was decorated with Greek and Latin mottoes. No sooner did the barber spy

out these inscriptions, than he said to me All these Greek words smell strongly of my uncle Thomas's

lamp. I would lay a wager he has a hand in them, for between ourselves, he is a man of parts and learning. He

knows all the classics by heart. If he would keep them to himself it would be very well, but he is always

quoting them in company, and that people do not like. But then to be sure he has a right, because this uncle of

mine has translated ever so many of the Latin poets and hard Greek authors with his own hand and pen. He

has got all antiquity at his fingers' ends, as you may know by his ingenious and profound criticisms. If it had

not been for him, we might never have learned that the Athenian school boys cried when they were flogged;

we owe that fact in the history of education to his fundamental knowledge of the subject.

After my fellowtraveller and myself had looked about us, we had a mind to inquire what these preparations

were for. Going about on the hunt, Diego recognized in the manager Signor Thomas de la Fuenta, to whom

we made up with great eagerness. The schoolmaster did not recollect the young barber at first, such a

CH. IX. The meeting of Diego with his family; their circumstances in life; great rejoicings on the occasion; the parting scene between him and Gil Blas. 73

difference had ten years made. But when convinced of his being his own flesh and blood, he gave him a

cordial embrace, and said with much appearance of kindness Ah! here you are, Diego, my dear nephew,

here you are, restored after your wanderings to your native land. You come to revisit your household gods,

your Penates, and heaven delivers you back safe and sound into the bosom of your family. Oh happy day,

happy in all the proportions of arithmetic! A day worthy to be marked with a white stone and inserted among

the Fasti! We have annals in abundance for you, my friend; your uncle Pedro, the poetaster, has fallen a

sacrifice at the shrine of Pluto: to speak to the comprehension of the vulgar, he has been dead these three

months. That miser, in his lifetime, was afraid of wanting necessaries Argenti pallebat amore. Though the

great were heaping wealth upon his head, his annual expenditure did not amount to ten pistoles. He had but

one miserable attendant, and him he starved. This crazy fellow, more wrongheaded than the Grecian

Aristippus, who ordered his slaves to leave all their costly baggage in the heart of Lybia, as an incumbrance

on their march, heaped up all the gold and silver he could scrape together. And to what end? for those very

heirs whom he refused to acknowledge. He died worth thirty thousand ducats, shared between your father,

your uncle Bertrand, and myself. We shall be able to do very well for our children. My brother Nicholas has

already married off your sister Theresa to the son of a magistrate in this place Connubio junxit stabili

propriamque dica vit. These very hymeneals, greeted auspiciously by all the nuptial powers, have we been

celebrating for these two days with all this pomp and luxury. These tents in the plain are of our pitching.

Pedro's three heirs have each a booth of his own, and we defray the expenses of the day alternately. I wish

you had come sooner, you might have seen the whole progress of our festivities. The day before yesterday,

the weddingday, your father gave his treat. It was a superb entertainment, succeeded by running at the ring.

Your uncle, the mercer, regaled us yesterday with a f�te champ�tre, and paid the piper handsomely. There

were ten of the best grown boys, and ten young girls, dressed out in pastoral weeds; all the frippery in his

shop was brought out to prank them up. This assemblage of Ganymedes and Houris ran through all the mazes

of the dance, and warbled forth a thousand tender and spiritstirring lays. And yet, though nothing was ever

more genteel, the effect was not thought striking; but that must be owing to the bad taste of the spectators, the

Today, the wheels are greased by your humble servant, and I mean to pre sent the burgesses of Olm�do with

a pageant of my own invention Finis coronabit opus. I have got a stage erected, on which, God willing,

shall be represented by my scholars a piece of my own composing, entitled and called The Amusements

of Muley Bugentuf, King of Morocco. It will be played to perfection, for my pupils declaim like the players

of Madrid. They are lads of family at Penafiel and Segovia, boarders with me. They know how to touch the

passions! To be sure they have rehearsed under my tuition; their emphasis will seem as if struck in the mint

of their master ut ita dicam. With respect to the piece I shall not say a word about it, you shall be taken by

surprise. I shall simply state that it must produce a deep impression on the audience. It is one of those tragic

subjects which harrow up the soul, by images of death presented to the senses in all their fearful forms. I am

of Aristotle's mind, terror is a principal engine. Oh! if I had written for the stage, I would have introduced

none but bloody tyrants, and death dispensing heroes. Not all the perfumes of Arabia should have sweetened

this bloodpolluted hand, I would have been up to my elbows in gore. There would have been tragedy with a

vengeance; principal characters! ay, guards and attendants, should all have been sprawling together. I would

have butchered every man of them, and the prompter into the bargain. In a word, I refine upon Aristotle, and

border on the horrible, that is my taste. These plays to tear a cat in, are the only things for popularity; the

actors live merrily on their own dying speeches, and the authors roll in luxury on the devastation of mankind.

Just as this harangue was over, we saw a great crowd of both sexes coming out of town into the plain. Who

should it be but the newmarried couple, attended by their families and friends, with ten or twelve musicians

in the van, producing a most obstreperous din of harmony. We went up to them, and Diego introduced

himself. Peals of congratulation were immediately rung through the assembly, and every one was eager to

shake him by the hand. He had enough upon his shoulders to receive all their fraternal embraces. Relations

and strangers all were for having a pull at him. At length his father said You are welcome, Diego. You

find your kinsmen living upon the fat of the land, my friend. I shall say no more at present, a nod is as good

CH. IX. The meeting of Diego with his family; their circumstances in life; great rejoicings on the occasion; the parting scene between him and Gil Blas. 74

as a wink. Meanwhile the company went forward upon the plain, took their stations under the tents, and sat

down to table. I kept close to my companion, and we both dined with the happy couple, who appeared to be

suitably matched. The meal was not soon over, for the schoolmaster had the vanity to give three courses, for

the purpose of cutting out his brothers, who had not been so magnificent in their hospitalities.

After the banquet, all the guests expressed their longing to see Signor Thomas's play, not doubting but the

performance of so extraordinary a genius would deserve all their ears. We came in front of the stage; the

musicians had taken possession of the orchestra, for the overture and acttunes. While every one was waiting

in profound silence for the rising of the curtain, the actors appeared on the boards; and the author, with the

piece in his hand, sat down at the wing, in the prompter's place. Well might he call it a tragedy, for in the first

act the King of Morocco, by way of diversion, shot an hundred Moorish slaves with arrows; in the second he

beheaded thirty Portuguese officers, taken prisoners by one of his captains: and in the third and last, this

monarch, surfeited with longindulged libertinism, set fire with his own hands to the seraglio where his

wives were confined, and reduced it to ashes with its inhabitants. The Moorish slaves, as well as the

Portuguese officers, were puppets on a very curious construction; and the palace, built of pasteboard, looked

very naturally in flames by means of an artificial firework. This conflagration, accompanied by a thousand

piercing cries, issuing from the ruins, concluded the piece, and the curtain dropped upon this amiable

entertainment. The whole plain resounded with the applause of this fine tragedy; which spoke for the good

I did not suppose there was anything more to be seen after The Amusements of Muley Bugentuf, but I was

mistaken. Kettledrums and trumpets announced a new exhibition the distribution of prizes for

Thomas de la Fuenta, to give additional solemnity to his olympics, had made all his boys, as well dayscholars

as boarders, write exercises; and on this occasion he was to give to those who had succeeded best, books

bought at Segovia out of his own pocket. All at once were brought upon the stage two long forms out of the

school, with a press full of old wormeaten books in fine new bindings. At this signal all the actors returned

upon the stage, and took their places round Signor Thomas, who looked as big as the head of a college. He

had a sheet of paper in his band, with the names of the successful candidates. This he gave to the King of

Morocco, who began calling over the list with an authoritative voice. Each scholar, answering to his name,

went humbly to receive a book from the hands of the bumjerker; after this he was crowned with laurel, and

seated on one of the two benches to be exposed to the gaze of the admiring company. Yet, desirous as the

schoolmaster might be to send the spectators away in good humour, he brought his eggs to a bad market; for,

having distributed almost all the prizes to the boarders, according to the usual etiquette of pedagogues, that

those who pay most must necessarily be the cleverest fellows, the mammas of certain dayscholars caught

fire at this instance of partiality, and fell foul of the disciplinarian thereupon: so that the festival, hitherto so

much to the glory of the donor, seemed likely to have ended to the same tune as the carousal of the Lapithae.

I MADE some stay with the young barber. At my departure, I met with a traveller of Segovia passing through

Olm�do. He was returning with four mules from a trading expedition to Valladolid, and took me by way of

back carriage. We got acquainted on the road, and he took such a fancy to me that nothing would serve him

but I must be his guest at Segovia. He gave me free quarters for two days, and when he found me determined

to leave him for Madrid under convoy of a muleteer, he troubled me with a letter, begging me to deliver it in

person according to the superscription, without hinting that it was a letter of recommendation. I was punctual

in calling on Signor Matheo Melendez. He was a woollendraper, living at the gate of the Sun, at the corner

of Trunkmaker street. No sooner had he broken the cover and read the contents, than he said with an air of

complacency Signor Gil Blas, my correspondent, Pedro Palacio, has written to me so pressingly in your

favour, that I cannot do otherwise than offer you a bed at my house; moreover, he desires me to find you a

good master, and I undertake the commission with pleasure. I have no doubt of suiting you to a hair.

I embraced the offer of Melendez the more gratefully because my funds were getting much below par; but I

was not long a burden on his hospitality. At the week's end, he told me that he had mentioned my name to a

gentleman of his acquaintance, who wanted a valetdechambre, and, according to present appearances, the

place would not be long vacant. In fact, this gentleman happened to make his appearance in the very nick

Sir, said Melendez, pushing me forward, you see before you the young man as by former advice. He is a

pupil of honour and integrity. I can answer for him as if he was one of my own family. The gentleman looked

at me with attention, said that my face was in my favour, and hired me at once. He has nothing to do but to

follow me, added he, I will put him into the routine of his employment. At these words he wished the

tradesman good morning, and took me into the High street, directly over against St Philip's church. We went

into a very handsome house, of which he occupied one wing; then going up five or six steps, he took me into

a room secured by strong double doors, with an iron grate between. From this room we went into another,

If my new master had examined me closely, I had all my wits about me as well as he. He was a man on the

wrong side of fifty, with a saturnine and serious air. His temper seemed to be even, and I thought no harm of

him. He asked me several questions about my family; and liking my answers Gil Blas, said he, I take you

to be a very sensible lad, and am well pleased to have you in my service. On your part, you shall have no

reason to complain. I will give you six rials a day board wages, besides vails. Then I require no great

attendance, for I keep no table, but always dine out. You will only have to brush my clothes, and be your own

master for the rest of the day. Only take care to be at home early in the evening, and to be in waiting at the

door, that is your chief duty. After this lecture, he took six rials out of his purse, and gave them to me as

earnest. We then went out, he locked the doors after him, and taking care of the keys My friend, said he,

you need not go with me, follow the devices of your own heart; but on my return this evening, let me find

you on that staircase. With this injunction he left me to dispose of myself as seemed best in my own eyes.

In good sooth, Gil Blas, said I in a soliloquy, you have got a jewel of a master. What! fall in with an

employer to give you six rials a day for wiping off the dust from his clothes, and putting his room to rights in

the morning, with the liberty of walking about and taking your pleasure like a schoolboy in the holidays! By

my troth! it is a place of ten thousand. No wonder I was in a hurry to get to Madrid, it was doubtless some

mysterious boding of good fortune prepared for me. I spent the day in the streets, diverting myself with

gaping at novelties a busy occupation. In the evening, after supping at an ordinary not far from our house,

I squatted myself down in the corner pointed out by my master. He came three quarters of an hour after me,

and seemed pleased with my punctuality. Very well, said he, this is right, I like attentive servants. At these

words, he opened the doors of his apartment, and closed them upon us again as soon as we had got in. As we

had no candle, he took his tinderbox and struck a light. I then helped him to undress. When he was in bed, I

lighted, by his order, a lamp in his chimney, and carried the waxlight into the antechamber, where I lay in a

pressbed without curtains. He got up the next day between nine and ten o'clock; I brushed his clothes. He

paid me my six rials, and sent me packing till the evening. My mysterious master went out himself too, not

without great caution in fastening the doors, and we parted for the remainder of the day.

Such was our course of life, very agreeable to me. The best of the joke was, that I did not know my master's

name. Melendez did not know it himself. The gentleman came to his shop now and then, and bought a piece

of cloth. My neighbours were as much at a loss as myself; they all assured me that my master was a perfect

stranger, though he had lived two years in the ward. He visited no soul in the neighbourhood, and some of

them, a little given to scandal, concluded him to be no better than he should be. Suspicions got to be more

rife; he was suspected of being a spy of Portugal, and it was thought but fair play to give a hint for my own

good. This intimation troubled me. Thought I to myself, should this turn out to be a fact, I stand a chance for

seeing the inside of a prison at Madrid. My innocence will be no security; my past illusage makes me look

on justice with antipathy. Twice have I experienced that if the innocent are not condemned in a lump with the

guilty, at least the rights of hospitality are too little regarded in their persons to make it pleasant to pass a

I consulted Melendez in so delicate a conjuncture. He was at a loss how to advise me. Though he could not

bring himself to believe that my master was a spy, he had no reason to be confident on the other side of the

question. I determined to watch my employer, and to leave him if he turned out to be an enemy of the state;

but then prudence and personal comfort required me to be certain of my fact. I began, therefore, to pry into

his actions; and to sound him, Sir, said I one evening while he was undressing, I do not know how one ought

to live so as to be secure from reflections. The world is very scurrilous! We, among others, have neighbours

not worth a curse. Sad dogs! You have no notion how they talk of us. Do they indeed, Gil Blas? quoth he. Be

it so! but what can they say of us, my friend? Ah! truly, replied I, evil tongues never want a whet. Virtue

herself furnishes weapons for her own martyrdom. Our neighbours say that we are dangerous people, that we

ought to be looked after by government; in a word, you are taken for a spy of Portugal. In throwing out this

hint, I looked hard at my master, just as Alexander squinted at his physician, and pursed up all my penetration

to remark upon the effect of my intelligence. There seemed to be a hitch in the muscles of my mysterious

lord, altogether in unison with the suspicions of the neighbourhood; and he fell into a brown study, which

bore no very auspicious interpretation. However, he put a better face on the matter, and said with sufficient

composure: Gil Blas, leave our neighbours to discourse as they please, but let not our repose depend on their

judgments. Never mind what they think of us, provided our own consciences do not wince.

Hereupon he went to bed, and I did the like, without knowing what course to take. The next day, just as we

were on the point of going out in the morning, we heard a violent knocking at the outer door on the staircase.

My master opened the inner, and looked through the grate. A welldressed man said to him: Please your

honour, I am an alguazil, come to inform you that Mr Corregidor wishes to speak a word with you. What

does he want? answered my pattern of secrecy. That is more than I know, sir, replied the alguazil; but you

have only to go and wait on him; you will soon be informed. I am his most obedient, quoth my master; I have

no business with him. At the tail of this speech, he banged the inner door; then, after walking up and down a

little while, like one who pondered on the discourse of the alguazil, he put my six rials into my hand, and

said: Gil Blas, you may go out, my friend; for my part, I shall stay at home a little longer, but have no

occasion for you. He made an impression on my mind, by these words, that he was afraid of being taken up,

and was therefore obliged to remain in his apartments. I left him there; and, to see how far my suspicions

were founded, hid myself in a place whence I could see if he went out. I should have had patience to have

staid there all the morning, if he had not saved me the trouble. But an hour after, I saw him walk the street

with an ease and confidence which dumb founded my sagacity. Yet far from yielding to these appearances, I

mistrusted them; for my verdict went to condemnation. I considered his easy carriage as put on; and his

staying at home as a finesse to secure his gold and jewels, when probably he was going to consult his safety

by speedy flight. I had no idea of seeing him again, and doubted whether I should attend at his door in the

evening; so persuaded was I, that the day would see him on the outside of the city, as his only refuge from

impending danger. Yet I kept my appointment; when, to my extreme surprise, my master returned as usual.

He went to bed without betraying the least uneasiness, and got up the next morning with the same composure.

Just as he had finished dressing, another knock at the door! My master looked through the grate His friend the

alguazil was there again, and he asked him what he wanted. Open the door, answered the alguazil; here is Mr

Corregidor. At this dreadful name, my blood froze in my veins. I had a devilish loathing of those gentry since

I had passed through their hands, and could have wished myself at that moment an hundred leagues from

Madrid. As for my employer, less startled than myself; he opened the door, and received the magistrate

respectfully. You see, said the corregidor, that I do not break in upon you with a whole posse: my maxim is to

do business in a quiet way. In spite of the ugly reports circulated about you in the city, I think you deserve

some little attention. What is your name, and business at Madrid? Sir, answered my master, I am from New

Castile, and my title is Don Bernard de Castil Blazo. With respect to my way of life, I lounge about, frequent

public places, and take my daily pleasure in a select circle of polite company. Of course you have a handsome

fortune! replied the judge. No, sir, interrupted my Mecaenas, I have neither annuities, nor lands, nor houses.

How do you live then? rejoined the corregidor. I will show you, replied Don Bernard. At the same time he

lifted up a part of the hangings, before a door I had not observed, opened that and one beyond, then took the

Sir, said he again, you know that the Spaniards are proverbially indolent; yet, whatever may be their general

dislike to labour, I may compliment myself on bettering the example. I have a stock of laziness, which

disqualifies me for all exertion. If I had a mind to puff my vices into virtues, I might call this sloth of mine a

philosophical indifference, the work of a mind weaned from all that worldlings court with so much ardour;

but I will frankly own myself constitutionally lazy, and so lazy, that rather than work for my subsistence, I

would lay myself down and starve. Therefore, to lead a life befitting my fancy, not to have the trouble of

looking after my affairs, and above all to do without a steward, I have converted all my patrimony, consisting

of several considerable estates, into ready money. In this chest there are fifty thousand ducats; more than

enough for the remainder of my days, should I live to be an hundred! For I do not spend a thousand a year,

and am already more than fifty years old. I have no fears, therefore, for futurity, since I am not addicted,

heaven be praised, to any one of the three things which usually ruin men. I care little for the pleasures of the

table; I only play for my amusement; and I have given up women. There is no chance of my being reckoned,

in my old age, among those libidinous greybeards to whom jilts sell their favours by troy weight.

You are a happy man! said the corregidor. They are in the wrong to suspect you of being a spy: that office is

quite out of character for a man like you. Take your own course, Don Bernard: continue to live as you like.

Far from disturbing your peace, I declare myself your protector; I request your friendship, and pledge my

own. Ah! sir, exclaimed my master, thrilled with these kind expressions, I accept with equal joy and gratitude

your precious offer. In giving me your friendship you augment my wealth, and carry my happiness to its

height. After this conversation, which the alguazil and myself heard; from the closet door, the corregidor took

his leave of Don Bernard, who could not do enough to express his sense of the obligation. On my part,

mimicking thy master in doing the honours of the house, I overburdened the alguazil with civilities. I made

him a thousand low bows, though I felt for him in my sleeve the contempt and hatred which every honest

DON Bernard de Castil Blazo, having attended the corregidor to the street, returned in a hurry to fasten his

strong box, and all the doors which secured it. We then went out, both of us well satisfied, he at having

acquired a friend in power, and myself at finding my six rials a day secured to me. The desire of relating this

adventure to Melendez made me bend my steps towards his house; but, near my journey's end, whom should

I meet but Captain Rolando! My surprise was extreme, and I could not help quaking at the sight of him. He

recollected me at once, accosted me gravely, and, still keeping up his tone of superiority, ordered me to

follow him. I tremblingly obeyed, saying inwardly: Alas! he means, doubtless, to make me pay my debts!

Whither will he lead me? There may, perhaps, be some subterraneous retreat in this city. Plague take it! If I

thought so, I would soon show him I have not got the gout. I walked, therefore, behind him carefully looking

out where he might stop, with the pious design of putting my best leg foremost, if there was anything in the

Rolando soon dispersed my alarms. He went into a wellfrequented tavern; I followed him. He called for the

best wine, and ordered dinner. While it was getting ready, we went into a private room, where the captain

addressed me as follows: You may well be astonished, Gil Blas, to renew your acquaintance with your old

commander; and you will be still more so, when you have heard my tale. The day I left you in the cave, and

CH. II. The astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that robber's curious narrative. 78

went with my troop to Mansilla, for the purpose of selling the mules and horses we had taken the evening

before, we met the son of the corregidor of Leon, attended by four men on horseback well armed, following

his carriage. Two of his people we made to bite the dust, and the other two ran away. On this the coachman,

alarmed for his master, cried out to us in a tone of supplication Alas! my dear gentlemen, in God's name,

do not kill the only son of his worship the corregidor of Leon. These words were far from softening my

comrades; on the contrary, their fury knew no bounds. Good folks, said one of them, let not the son of a

mortal enemy to men like us escape our vengeance. How many ornaments of our profession has his father cut

off in their prime! Let us repay his cruelty with interest, and sacrifice this victim to their offended ghosts. The

whole troop applauded the fineness of this feeling, and my lieutenant himself was preparing to act as high

priest at this unhallowed altar, when I interdicted the rites. Stop, said I; why shed blood without occasion?

Let us rest contented with the youth's purse. As he makes no resistance, it would be against the laws of war to

cut his throat. Besides, he is not answerable for his father's misdeeds; nay, his father only does his duty in

Thus did I plead for the corregidor's son, and my intercession was not unavailing. We only took every

farthing of his money, and carried off with us the horses of the two men whom we had slain. These we sold

with the rest at Mansilla. Thence we returned to the cavern, where we arrived the following morning a little

before daybreak. We were not a little surprised to find the trap open, and still more so, when we found

Leonarda handcuffed in the kitchen. She unravelled the mystery in two words. We wondered how you could

have overreached us; no one could have thought you capable of serving us such a trick, and we forgave the

effect for the merit of the invention. As soon as we had released our kitchen wench, I gave orders for a good

luncheon. In the mean time we went to look after our horses in the stable, where the old negro, who had been

left to himself for fourandtwenty hours, was at the last gasp. We did all we could for his relief, but he was

too far gone; indeed so much reduced, that, in spite of our endeavours, we left the poor devil on the threshold

of another world. It was very sad; but it did not spoil our appetites, and, after an abundant breakfast, we

retired to our chambers, and slept away the whole day. On our awaking, Leonarda apprized us that Domingo

had paid the debt of nature. We carried him to the charnelhouse where you may recollect to have lodged,

Five or six days afterwards, it fell out that one morning, on a sally, we encountered three companies of the

Holy Brotherhood, on the outskirts of the wood. They seemed waiting to attack us. We perceived but one

troop at first. These we despised, though superior in number to our party, and rushed forward to the onset.

But while we were at loggerheads with the first, the two others in ambuscade came thundering down upon us;

so that our valour was of no use. There was no withstanding such a host of enemies. Our lieutenant and two

of our gang gave up the ghost on this occasion. As for the two others and myself, we were so closely pressed

and hemmed in, as to be taken prisoners: and, while two detachments convoyed us to Leon, the third went to

destroy our retreat. How it was discovered, I will briefly tell you. A peasant of Luceno, crossing the forest on

his way home, by chance espied the trapdoor of our subterraneous residence, which a certain young

runaway had not shut down after him, for it was precisely the day when you took yourself off with the lady.

He had a violent suspicion of its being our abode, without having the courage to go in. It was enough to mark

the adjacent parts, by lightly peeling with his knife bark from the nearest trees, and so on, from distance to

distance, till he was quite out of the wood. He then betook himself to Leon, with this grand discovery for the

corregidor, who was so much the better pleased, as his son had been robbed by our gang. This magistrate

collected together three companies to lay hold of us, and the peasant showed them the way.

My arrival in the town of Leon was as good as that of a wild beast to the inhabitants. Even though I had been

a Portuguese general made prisoner of war, the people could not have been more anxious to see me. There he

goes, was the cry; that is he, the famous captain, the terror of these parts. It would serve him right to tear him

piecemeal with pincers, and make his comrades join in the chorus. To the corregidor, was the universal cry;

and his worship began insulting me. So, so! said he, scoundrel as you are, the powers of justice, worn to a

thread with your past irregularities, hand over the task of punishment to me as their delegate. Sir, answered I,

CH. II. The astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that robber's curious narrative. 79

great as my crimes may have been, at least the death of your only son is not to be laid at my door. His life

was saved by me; you owe me some acknowledgment on that score. Oh! wretch, exclaimed he, there are no

measures to be kept with people of your description. And though it were my wish to save you, my sacred

office would not allow me to indulge my feelings. Having spoken to this effect, he committed us to a

dungeon, where my companions had no time to lament their hard fate. They got out of confinement, at the

end of three days, to expatiate with tragic energy at the place of execution. For my part, I took up my quarters

in limbo for three complete weeks. My punishment seemingly was deferred only to render it more terrible;

and I was looking out for some refinement on the ordinary course of criminal justice, when the corregidor,

having summoned me before him, said: Give ear to your sentence. You are free. Had it not been for you, my

only son would have been assassinated on the highway. As a father, my gratitude was due for this service; but

not being competent to acquit you in my capacity of a magistrate, I have written up to court in your favour;

have solicited your pardon, and have obtained it. Go, then, whithersoever it may seem good to you. But take

my advice; profit by this lucky escape. Look to your paths, and give up the trade of a highwayman for good

I was deeply impressed by this advice, and took my departure for Madrid, in the firm determination of

mending my ways, and living quietly in that city. There I found my father and mother dead, and what they

left behind them in the hands of an old kinsman, who administered duly and truly, as all trustees of course do.

I saved three thousand ducats out of the fire; scarcely a quarter of what I was entitled to. But where was the

remedy? There was no standing to the quirks and evasions of the law. Just to be doing something, I have

purchased an alguazil's place. My colleagues would have set their faces against my admission, for the honour

of the cloth, had they known my history. Luckily they did not, or at least affected not to know it, which was

just as good as the reality; for, in that illustrious body, it is the bounden duty and interest of every member to

wear a mask. The pot cannot call the kettle hard names, thank heaven. The devil would have no great catch in

the best of us. And yet, my friend, I could willingly unbosom myself to you without disguise. My present

occupation is much against the grain; it requires too circumspect and too mysterious a conduct; there is

nothing to be done but by underhand dealings, gravity, and cunning. Oh! for my first trade! The new one is

safer, to be sure; but there is more fun in the other, and liberty is my motto. I feel disposed to get rid of my

office, and to set out some sunshiny morning for the mountains at the source of the Tagus. I know of a retreat

thereabouts, inhabited by a numerous gang, composed chiefly of Catalonians; when I have said that, I need

say no more. If you will go along with me, we will swell the number of those heroes. I shall be second in

command. To make your footing respectable at once, I will swear that you have fought ten times by my side.

Your valour shall mount to the very skies. I will tell more good of you than a commanderinchief of a

favourite officer. I will not say a word about the runaway trick, that would render you suspected of turning

nose, therefore mum is the word. What say you to it? Are you ready to set off? I am impatient to know your

Every one to his own fancy, said I then to Rolando, you were born for bold exploits, and your friend for a

serene and quiet life. I understand you, interrupted he; the lady whom love induced you to carry off still

preserves her influence over your heart, and you doubtless lead with her that serene life of which you are

enamoured. Own the truth, master Gil Blas, she is become a thing of your own, and you are both living on the

pistoles carried off from the subterraneous retreat. I told him he was mistaken; and, to set him right, related

the lady's adventures and my own while we sat at dinner. When our meal was finished he led back to the

subject of the Catalonians, and attempted once more to engage me in his project. But finding me inflexible,

he looked at me with a terrific frown, and said seriously Since you are dastard enough to prefer your

servile condition to the honour of enlisting in a troop of brave fellows, I turn you adrift to your own

grovelling inclinations. But mark me well, a lapse may be fatal. Forget our meeting of today, and never

prate about me to any living soul; for if I catch you bandying about my name in your idle talk . . . . you know

my ways, I need say no more. With these words he called for the landlord, paid the reckoning, and we rose

CH. II. The astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that robber's curious narrative. 80

As we were coming out of the tavern, and taking our leave, my master was passing along the street. He saw

me, and I observed him look more than once at the captain. I had no doubt but he was surprised at meeting

me in such company. It is certain that Rolando's physiognomy and air were not much in favour of moral

qualities. He was a gigantic fellow, with a long face, a parrot's beak, and a very rascally contour, without

I was not mistaken in my guess. In the evening I found Don Bernard harping on the captain's figure, and

charmingly disposed to believe all the fine things I could have said of him, if my tongue had not been tied.

Gil Blas, said he, who is that great shark I saw with you awhile ago? I told him it was an alguazil, and

thought to have got off with that answer, but he returned to the charge; and observing my confusion, from the

remembrance of the threats used by Rolando, broke off the conversation abruptly and went to bed. The next

morning, when I had performed my ordinary duties, he counted me over six ducats instead of six rials, and

said Here, my friend, this is what I give you for your services up to this day. Go and look out for another

place. A servant keeping such high company is too much for me. I bethought myself of saying, in my own

defence, that I had known that alguazil, by having prescribed for him at Valladolid, while I was practising

medicine. Very good, replied my master, the shift is ingenious enough; you might have thought of it last

night, and not have looked so foolish. Sir, rejoined I, in good truth prudence kept me silent, and gave to my

reserve the aspect of guilt. Undoubtedly, resumed he, tapping me softly on the shoulder, it was carrying

prudence very far, even to the confines of cunning. Go, lad, I have no further occasion for your services.

I went immediately to acquaint Melendez with the bad news, who told me, for my comfort, that he would

engage to procure me a better berth. Indeed, some days after, he said Gil Blas, my friend, you have no

notion of the good luck in store for you. You will have the most agreeable post in the world. I am going to

settle you with Don Matthias de Silva. He is a man of the first fashion, one of those young noblemen

commonly distinguished by the appellation of beaus. I have the honour of his custom. He takes up goods of

me, on tick, indeed, but these great men are good pay in the long run, they often marry rich heiresses, and

then old scores are wiped off; or, should that fail, a tradesman who understands his business puts such a price

upon his articles, that if threefourths of his debts are bad, he is no loser. Don Matthias's steward is my

intimate friend. Let us go and look for him. It will be for him to present you to his master, and you may rely

As we were on our way to Don Matthias's house, this honest shopkeeper said It is fit, methinks, that you

should be let into the steward's character. His name is Gregorio Rodriguez. Between ourselves, he is a man of

low birth, with a talent for intrigue, in which vocation he has laboured till a stewardship in two distressed

families completed their ruin, and made his fortune. I give you notice, that his vanity is excessive; he loves to

see the underservants creeping and crawling at his feet. It is with him they must make interest if they have

any favour to beg of their master, for should they happen to obtain it without his interference, he has always

some shift or other at hand to get the boon revoked, or at least render it of no avail. Regulate your conduct on

this hint, Gil Blas; pay court to Signor Rodriguez in preference to your master himself, and leave no stone

unturned to get into his good graces. His friendship will be of material service to you. He will pay your wages

to the day; and, if you have management enough to worm yourself into his confidence, you may chance to

pick up some of the fragments which fall from his table. There are enough for an hungrier dog than you! Don

Matthias is a young nobleman, with no thought to throw away but on his pleasures, nor the slightest suspicion

how his own affairs are going on. What a house for a steward who knows how to be a steward!

When we got to our journey's end, we asked to speak with Signor Rodriguez. We were told that we should

find him in his own apartment. There he was, sure enough, and with him a clownish sort of fellow holding a

CH. III Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the service of a beau. 81

blue bag, full of money. The steward, looking more wan and yellow than a girl in a hurry for a husband, ran

up to Melendez with open arms; the draper was not behindhand with him, and they each hugged the other

with a shew of friendship, at least as much indebted to art as nature for its plausible effect. After this, the next

question was about me. Rodriguez examined me from top to toe; saying very civilly at the same time that I

was just such an one as Don Matthias wanted, and that he would with pleasure take upon himself to present

me to that nobleman. Thereupon Melendez gave him to understand how deeply he was interested in my

behalf; he begged the steward to take me under his protection, and leaving me with him, after plenty of

compliments, withdrew. As soon as he was gone out, Rodriguez said, I will introduce you to my master the

moment I have dispatched this honest husbandman. He called the country man to him forthwith, and taking

his bag, Talego, said he, let us see if the five hundred pistoles are all right. He counted over the money

himself. As the sum was found to be exact, the countryman took a receipt and went away. The cash was put

back again into the bag. It was my turn next to be attended to. We may now, said my new patron, go to my

master's levee. He usually gets up about noon, it is now near one o'clock, and must be daylight in his

Don Matthias had indeed just risen. He was still in his morning gown, kicking his heels in a great chair, with

a leg tossed over one of the elbows, swinging backwards and forwards, and manufacturing his own snuff. His

conversation was addressed to a footman in waiting, who officiated as a temporary valetde chambre. My

lord, said the steward, here is a young man whom I take the liberty of presenting to your lordship in the place

of him you discharged the day before yesterday. Your draper, Melendez, has given him a character; he

undertakes for his qualifications, and I believe you will be very well pleased with him. That is enough,

answered the young nobleman, since he has your recommendation, I adopt him blindfold into my retinue. He

is my valetdechambre at once; that business is settled. Let us talk of other matters, Rodriguez, you are

come just in time, I was going to send for you. I have a budget of bad news, my dear Rodriguez. I played with

ill luck last night, an hundred pistoles in my pocket lost, and two hundred more on credit. You know how

indispensable it is for persons of high rank to pay their debts of honour. As for any other, it is no matter when

they are paid. Punctuality is all very well between one tradesman and another, but they cannot expect it from

one of us. These two hundred pistoles must be raised forthwith and sent to the Countess de Pedrosa. Sir,

quoth the steward, that is sooner said than done. Where, prythee, am I to get such a sum? Threaten as I will, I

never touch a maravedi from your tenants. And yet your establishment is to be kept up in style, and I am

wearing myself to a thread in furnishing the ways and means. It is true that hitherto, heaven be praised, we

have rubbed on, but what witch to conjure for a wind, now, I know not, the case is desperate. All this prosing

is extremely impertinent, interrupted Don Matthias; this countinghouse talk makes me hideously nervous. So

then, Rodriguez, you really think to undertake my reform, and metamorphose me into a plodding manager of

my own estates? A very elegant sort of pastime for a man in my station of life; a man of rank and fashion!

Grant me patience, replied the steward; at the rate we are driving now, it is easily calculated how soon you

will be released from all those cares. You are a very great bore, resumed the young nobleman rather

peevishly, this brutal importunity is downright murder to one's feelings. I hate loud music, be so good as to

let me be ruined pianissimo. I tell you I want two hundred pistoles, and I must have them. Why, then, said

Rodriguez, we must have recourse to the old rascal who has lent you so much already on usurious terms.

Have recourse to the devil, if he will do you any good, answered Don Matthias; only let me have two hundred

While he was uttering these words in a hasty and fretful tone, the steward went out; and Don Antonio

Centell�s, a young man of quality, came in. What is the matter, my friend? said this last to my master: your

atmosphere is overcast; I trace passion in the lines of your countenance. Who can have ruffled that sweet

temper? I would lay a wager, it was that booby just gone out. Yes, answered Don Matthias, he is my steward.

Every time he comes to speak to me, I am in an agony for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. He rings

the changes on the state of my affairs; and tells me that I am spending principal and interest A beast! He will

say next, that I have ruined him into the bargain! My dear fellow, replied Don Antonio, I am exactly in the

same situation. My man of business is just such another scarecrow as your steward. When the sneaking

CH. III Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the service of a beau. 82

scoundrel, after repeated demands, brings me some niggardly supply, it is just as if he was lending me his

own. He expostulates most barbarously. Sir, says he, you are going to rack and ruin; there is an execution out

against you. I am obliged to cut him short, and beg him to remonstrate in epitome. The worst of it is, said

Don Matthias, that there is no doing without these fellows; they are the penance attached to our elegant

indiscretions. Just so, replied Centell�s. But listen, pursued he, bursting into a fit of laughter; a pleasant idea

has just struck me. Nothing was ever more farcically fancied. We may introduce a buffo caricato into our

serious opera, and relieve the knell of our departed goods and chattels with an humorous divertissement. The

plot is thus: let me try to borrow from your steward whatever you want. You shall do the same with my man

of business. Then let them both preach as they please; we shall hearken with the utmost composure. Your

steward will come and open his case to me; my man of business will plead the poverty of the land to you. I

shall hear of nothing but your extravagance; and you will see your own in mine as in a glass. It will be vastly

A thousand brilliant conceits followed this flight of genius, and put the young patricians into high spirits, so

that they kept up the ball with vivacity, if not with wit. Their conversation was interrupted by Gregorio

Rodriguez, who brought back with him a little old man with a bald head. Don Antonio was for moving off.

Farewell, Don Matthias, said he, we shall meet again anon. I leave you with these gentlemen; you have,

doubtless, some state affairs to discuss in council. Oh! no, no, answered my master, you had better stop; you

will not interrupt us. This warm old gentleman has the moderation to lend me money at twenty per cent.

What! at twenty per cent! exclaimed Centell�s in a tone of astonishment. In good truth! I wish you joy on

being in such hands. I do not come off so cheaply, for my part: I pay through the nose for every farthing I get.

My loans are generally raised at double that per cent. There is usury! said the father of the usurious tribe;

unconscionable dogs! Where do they expect to go when they die? I do not wonder there is so strong a

prejudice against moneylenders. It is the exorbitant profit which some of them derive from their discounts,

that brings reproach and ill will upon us all. If all my brethren of the blue balls were like me, we should not

be treated so scurvily; for my part, I only lend to do my duty towards my neighbour. Ah! if times were as

good now as in my early days, my purse should be at your service as a friend; and even now, in the present

distress of the money market, it goes against the grain to take a poor twenty per cent. But one would think

the money was all gone back to the mines whence it came: there is no such thing to be had, and the scarcity

compels me to depart a little from the disinterested severity of my benevolence. How much do you want?

pursued he, addressing my master. Two hundred pistoles, answered Don Matthias. I have four hundred here

in a bag, replied the usurer; it is only to give you half of them. At the same time he drew from underneath his

cloak a blue bag, looking just like that in which farmer Talego had left five hundred pistoles with Rodriguez.

I was not long in forming my judgment of the matter, and saw plainly that Melendez had not bragged without

reason of the steward's aptness in the ways of the world. The old man emptied the bag, displayed the cash on

a table, and set about counting it. The sight set all my master's extravagant passions in a flame; the sum total

proved very striking to his comprehension. Signor Descomulgado, said he to the usurer, I have just made a

very sensible reflection: I am a great fool. I only borrow enough to redeem my credit, without thinking of my

empty pockets. I should be obliged to give you the trouble of coming again tomorrow. I think, therefore, it

will be best to spare your age and infirmities, and ease you of the four hundred at once. My lord, answered

the old man, I had destined half of this money to a good licentiate, who lays out the income of his large

preferments in those pious and charitable uses for which they were originally given to the clergy, as stewards

of the poor, and guides to the young and unwary. In pursuance of this end, it is his great delight to wean

young girls from the seductions of a wicked world, and place them in a snug wellfurnished little box of his

own, where they may be obnoxious to his ghostly admonitions by day and by night. But, since you have

occasion for the whole sum, it is at your disposal. Some thing by way of security . . . . Oh! as for security,

interrupted Rodriguez, taking a paper out of his pocket, you shall have as good as the bank. Here is a note

which Signor Don Matthias has only just to sign. He makes over five hundred pistoles, due from one of his

tenants, Talego, a wealthy yeoman of Mondejar. That is enough, replied the usurer, I never split hairs, but

deal upon the square. The steward insinuated a pen between his master's fingers, who signed his name at the

bottom of the note, without reading it; and whistled as he signed, for want of thought.

CH. III Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the service of a beau. 83

That business settled, the old man took his leave of my noble employer, who shook him cordially by the

hand, saying: Till I have. the pleasure of seeing you again, good master pounds, shillings, and pence, I am

your most devoted humble servant. I do not know why you should all be lumped together for a set of

bloodsuckers; you seem to me a necessary link in the chain of wellordered society. You are as good as a

physician to us pecuniary invalids of quality, and keep us alive by artificial restoratives in the last stage of a

consumptive purse. You are in the right, exclaimed Centell�s. Usurers are a very gentlemanly order in

society, and I must not be denied the privilege of paying my compliments to this illustrious specimen, for the

sake of his twenty per cent. With this banter, he came up and threw his arms about the old man's neck: and

these two overgrown children, for their amusement, began sending him backward. and forward between them

like a shuttlecock. After they had tossed him about from pillar to post, they suffered him to depart with the

steward, who ought to have come in for his share of the game, and for something a little more serious.

When Rodriguez and his stalkinghorse had left the room, Don Matthias sent, by the lacquey in waiting, half

his pistoles to the Countess de Pedrosa, and deposited the other half in a long purse worked with gold and

silk, which he usually wore in his pocket. Very well pleased to find himself in cash, he said to Don Antonio,

with an air of gaiety: What shall we do with ourselves today? Let us call a council. That is talking like a

statesman, answered Centell�s: I am your man: let us ponder gravely. While they were collecting their

deliberative wisdom on the course they were to pursue for the day, two other noblemen came in; Don Alexo

Segiar and Don Ferdinand de Gamboa; both nearly about my master's age, that is, from eight and twenty to

thirty. These four jolly blades began with such hearty salutations, as if they had not met for these ten years.

After that, Don Ferdinand, a professed bacchanalian, made his proposals to Don Matthias and Don Antonio:

Gentlemen, said he, where do you dine today? If you are not engaged, I will take you to a tavern, where you

shall quaff celestial liquor. I supped there last night, and did not come away till between five and six this

morning. Would to heaven, exclaimed my master, I had done the same! I should not have lost my money.

For my part, said Centell�s, I treated myself yesterday evening with a new amusement; for variety has always

its charms for me. Nothing but a change of pleasures can make the dull round of human life supportable. One

of my friends introduced me neck and heels to one of those gentry ycleped taxgatherers, who do the

government business and their own at the same time. There was no want of magnificence, good taste, or a

welldesigned set out table! but I found in the family itself an highly seasoned relish of absurdity. The farmer

of the revenues, though the most meanly extracted of the whole party, must set up for a great man; and his

wife, though hideously ugly, was a goddess in her own estimation, and made a thousand silly speeches, the

zest of which was heightened by a Biscayan accent. Add to this, that there were four or five children with

As for me, gentlemen, said Don Alexo Segiar, I supped with Arsenia the actress. We were six at table:

Arsenia, Florimonde, a coquette of her acquaintance, the Marquis de Zenette, Don Juan de Moncade, and

your humble servant. We passed the night in drinking and talking bawdy. What a flow of soul! To be sure,

Arsenia and Florimonde are not strong in their upper works; but then they have a facility in their vocation

which is more than all the wit in the world. They are the dearest madcaps, gay, romping, and rampant: they

THOSE noblemen pursued this strain of conversation, till Don Matthias, about whose person I was fiddling

all the while, was ready to go out. He then told me to follow him; and this bevy of fashionables set sail

together for the tavern, whither Don Ferdinand de Gamboa proposed to conduct them. I began my march in

the rear rank with three other valets; for each of the gentlemen had his own. I remarked with astonishment

that these three servants copied their masters, and assumed the same follies. I introduced myself as a new

CH. IV. Gil Blas gets into company with his fellows; they shew him a ready road to the reputation of wit, and impose on him a singular oath. 84

comer. They returned my salute in form; and one of them, after having taken measure of me very accurately,

said Brother, I perceive, by your gait, that you have never yet lived with a young nobleman. Alas! no,

answered I, neither have I been long in Madrid. So it appears, replied he, you smell strong of the country.

You seem timid and embarrassed; there is an hitch in your deportment. But no matter, we will soon wear off

all stiffness, take my word for it. Perhaps you think better of me than I deserve, said I. No, resumed he, no;

This specimen was enough to convince me that I had hearty fellows for my comrades, and that I could not be

in better hands to initiate me into high life belowstairs. On our arrival at the tavern, we found an

entertainment ready which Signor Don Ferdinand had been so provident as to order in the morning. Our

masters sat down to table, and we arranged ourselves behind their chairs. The conversation was spirited and

lively. My ears tingled to hear them. Their humour, their way of thinking, their mode of expression diverted

me. What fire! what sallies of imagination! They appeared like a new order of beings. With the dessert, we

set before them a great choice of the best wines in Spain, and left the room, to go to dinner in a little parlour,

I was not long in discovering that the combatants in our lists had more to recommend them than appeared at

first sight. They were not satisfied with aping the manners of their masters, but even copied their phrases; and

these varlets gave such a facsimile, that bating a little vulgarity, they might have passed themselves off very

well. I admired their free and easy carriage; still more was I charmed with their wit, but despaired of ever

coming up to them in my own person. Don Ferdinand's servant, on the score of his master treating ours, did

the honours; and, determined to do the thing genteelly, he called the landlord, and said to him Master

tapster, give us ten bottles of your very best wine; and, as you have an happy knack of doing, make the

gentlemen up stairs believe that they have drank them. With all my heart, answered the landlord; but, Master

Gaspard, you know that Signor Don Ferdinand owes me for a good many dinners already. If through your

kind intervention I could get some little matter on account . . . . Oh! interrupted the valet, do not be at all

uneasy about your debt: I will take it upon myself; put it down to me. It is true that some unmannerly

creditors have preferred legal measures to a reliance on our honour; but we shall take the first opportunity of

obtaining a replevy, and will pay you without looking at your bill. To have my master on your books is like

so many ingots of gold. The landlord brought us the wine, in spite of unmannerly creditors; and we drank to a

speedy replevy. It was as good as a comedy to see us drinking each other's health every minute, under our

masters' titles. Don Antonio's servant called Don Ferdinand's plain Gamboa, and Don Ferdinand's servant

called Don Antonio's Centell�s: they dubbed me Silva; and we kept pace in drunkenness, under these

Though my wit was less conspicuous than that of the other guests, they lost no opportunity of testifying their

pleasure in my acquaintance. Silva, said one of our merriest soakers, we shall make something of you, my

friend. I perceive that you have wit at will, if you did but know how to draw upon it. The fear of talking

absurdly prevents you from throwing out at all; and yet it is only by a bold push that a thousand people

nowadays set themselves up for good companions. Do you wish to be bright? You have only to give the

reins to your loquacity, and to venture indiscriminately on whatever comes uppermost: your blunders will

pass for the eccentricities of genius. Though you should utter an hundred extravagances, let but a single good

joke be packed up in the bundle, the nonsense shall be all forgotten, the witticism bandied about, and your

talent be puffed into high repute. This is the happy method our masters have devised, and it ought to be

adopted by all new candidates. Besides that I had but too strong a wish to pass for a clever fellow, the trick

they taught me appeared so easy in the performance, that it ought not to be buried in obscurity. I tried it at

once, and the fumes of the wine contributed to my success; that is to say, I talked at random, and had the

good luck to strike out of much absurdity some flashes of merriment, very acceptable to my audience. This

first essay inspired me with confidence. I redoubled my sprightliness, to sparkle in repartee; and chance gave

CH. IV. Gil Blas gets into company with his fellows; they shew him a ready road to the reputation of wit, and impose on him a singular oath. 85

Well done! said my fellowservant who had addressed me in the street, do not you begin to shake off your

rustic manners? You have not been two hours in our company, and you are quite another creature: your

improvement will be visible every day. This it is to wait on people of quality. It causes an elevation, which

the mind can never attain under a plebeian roof. Doubtless, answered I and for that reason I shall

henceforth dedicate my little talents to the nobility. That is bravely said, roared out Don Ferdinand's servant,

half seas over, commoners are not entitled to possess such a fund of superior genius as exists in us. Come,

gentlemen, let us make a vow never to colleague with any such beggarly fellows; let us swear to that by Styx.

We laughed heartily at Gaspard's conceit: the proposal was received with applause: and we took this mock

Thus sat we at table till our masters were pleased to get up from it. This was at midnight; an outrageous

instance of sobriety, in the opinion of my colleagues. To be sure, these noble lords left the tavern so early

only to visit a celebrated wanton, lodging in the purlieus of the court, and keeping open house night and day

for the votaries of pleasure. She was a woman from five and thirty to forty, still in the height of her charms,

entertaining in her discourse, and so perfect a mistress in the art of pleasure, that she sold the waste and

refuse of her beauty at a higher price than the first sample of the unadulterated article. She had always two or

three other pieces of damaged goods in the house, who contributed not a little to the great concourse of

nobility resorting thither. The afternoon was spent in play; then supper, and the night passed in drinking and

making merry. Our masters staid till morning, and so did we, without thinking the time long; for, while they

were toying with the mistresses, we attacked the maids. At length, we all parted when daylight peeped in on

My master getting up at his usual time, about noon, dressed himself. He went out. I followed him, and we

paid a visit to Don Antonio Centell�s, with whom we found one Don Alvaro de Acuna. He was an old

gentleman, who gave lectures on the science of debauchery. The rising generation, if they wanted to qualify

themselves for fine gentlemen, put themselves under his tuition. He moulded their ductile habits to pleasure,

taught them to make a distinguished figure in the world, and to squander their substance: he had no qualms as

to running out his own, for the deed was done. After these three blades had exchanged the compliments of the

morning, Centell�s said to my master In good faith, Don Matthias, you could not have come at a more

lucky time. Don Alvar is come to take me with him to a dinner, given by a citizen to the Marquis de Zenette

and Don Juan de Moncade; and you shall be of the party. And what is the citizen's name? said Don Matthias.

Gregorio de Noriega, said Don Alvar, and I will describe the young man in two words. His father, a rich

jeweller, is gone abroad, to attend the foreign markets, and left his son, at his departure, in the enjoyment of a

large income. Gregorio is a blockhead, with a turn for every sort of extravagance, and an awkward hankering

after the reputation of wit and fashion, in despite of nature. He has begged of me to give him a few

instructions. I manage him completely; and can assure you, gentlemen, that I lead him a rare dance. His estate

is rather deeply dipped already. I do not doubt it, exclaimed Centell�s; I see the vulgar dog in an almshouse.

Come, Don Matthias: let us honour the fellow with our acquaintance, and be in at the death of him. Willingly,

answered my master, for I delight in seeing the fortune of these plebeian upstarts kicked over, when they

affect to mix among us. Nothing, for instance, ever entertained me so much as the downfall of the

tollgatherer's son, whom play, and the vanity of figuring among the great, have stripped, till he has not a

house over his head. Oh! as for that, replied Don Alvar, he deserves no pity, he is as great a coxcomb in his

Centell�s and my master accompanied Don Alvar to Gregorio de Noriega's party. We went there also, that is,

Mogicon and myself; both in ecstasy at having an opportunity of spunging on a citizen, and pleasing

ourselves with the thought of being in at the death of him. At our entrance, we observed several men

employed in preparing dinner; and there issued from the ragouts they were taking up, a vapour which

conciliated the palate through the medium of the nostrils. The Marquis de Zenette and Don Juan de Moncade

were just come. The founder of the feast seemed a great simpleton. He aped the man of fashion with a most

clumsy grace; a wretched copy of admirable originals, or, more properly, an idiot in the chair of wisdom and

CH. IV. Gil Blas gets into company with his fellows; they shew him a ready road to the reputation of wit, and impose on him a singular oath. 86

taste. Figure to yourself a man of this character in the centre of five bantering fellows, all intent on making a

jest of him, and drawing him into ridiculous expenses. Gentlemen, said Don Alvar, after the first interchange

of civilities, give me leave to introduce you to Signor Gregorio de Noriega, a most brilliant star in the

hemisphere of fashion. He owns a thousand amiable qualities. Do you know that he has an highly cultivated

understanding? Choose your own subject, he is equally at home in every branch, from the subtilty and

closeness of logic, to the elementary science of the crisscrossrow. Oh! this is really too flattering,

interrupted the scot and lot gentleman with a very uncouth laugh. I might, Signor Alvaro, put you to the blush

as you have put me; for you may truly be termed a reservoir as it were, a common sewer of erudition. I had

no intention, replied Don Alvaro, to draw upon myself so savoury an encomium; but truly, gentlemen, Signor

Gregorio cannot fail of establishing a name in the world. As for me, said Don Antonio, what is so delightful

in my eyes, far above the honours of logic or the crisscross row, is the tasteful selection of his company.

Instead of demeaning himself to the level of tradesmen, he associates only with the young nobility, and sets

the expense at nought. There is an elevation of sentiment in this conduct which enchants me: and this is what

These ironical speeches were only the preludes to a continual strain of banter. Poor Gregorio was attacked on

all hands. The wits shot their bolts by turns, but they made no impression on the fool; on the contrary, he took

all they said literally, and seemed highly pleased with his guests, as if they did him a favour by making him

their laughingstock. In short, he served them for a butt while they sat at table, which they did not quit during

the afternoon, nor till late at night. We, as well as our masters, drank as we liked, so that the servants'hall

and the diningroom were in equally high order when we took our leave of the young jeweller.

AFTER some hours' sleep I got up in fine spirits; and calling the advice of Melendez to mind, went, till my

master was stirring, to pay my court to our steward, whose vanity was rather flattered by this attention. He

received me with a gracious air, and inquired how I was reconciled to the habits and manners of the young

nobility. I answered, that they were strange to me as yet, but that use and good example might work wonders

Use and good example did work wonders, and that right soon. My temper and conduct were quite altered.

From a discreet, sober lad, I got to be a lively, heedless merryandrew. Don Antonio's servant paid me a

compliment on my transformation, and told me that there wanted nothing but a tender interest in the lovely

part of the creation to shine like a new star dropped from the heavens. He pointed out to me that it was an

indispensable requisite in the character of a pretty fellow, that all our set were well with some fine woman or

other; and that he himself; to his own share, engrossed the favours of two beauties in high life. I was of

opinion that the rascal lied. Master Mogicon, said I, you are doubtless a very dapper, lively little fellow, with

a modest assurance; but still I do not comprehend how women of quality, not having your sweet person on

their own private establishments, should run the risk of being detected in an intrigue with a footman out of

doors. Oh! as for that, answered he, they do not know my condition. To my master's wardrobe, and even to

his name, am I indebted for these conquests. I will tell you how it is. I dress myself up as a young nobleman,

and assume the manners of one. I go to public places, and tip the wink first to one woman and then to

another, till I meet with one who returns the signal. Her I follow, and find means to speak with her. I take the

name of Don Antonio Centell�s. I plead for an assignation, the lady is squeamish about it; I am pressing, she

is kind, et caetera. Thus it is, my fine fellow, that I contrive to carry on my intrigues, and I would have you

I was too ambitious of shining like a new star dropped from the heavens, to turn a deaf ear to such counsel;

besides, there was about me no aversion to an amour. I therefore laid a plan to disguise myself as a young

CH. V. Gil Blas becomes the darling of the fair sex, and makes an interesting acquaintance. 87

nobleman, and look out for adventures of gallantry. There was a risk in assuming my masquerade dress at

home, lest it might be observed. I took a complete suit from my master's wardrobe, and made it up into a

bundle, which I carried to a barber's, where I thought I could dress and undress conveniently. There I tricked

myself out to the best advantage. The barber too lent a helping hand to my attire. When we thought it

adjusted to a nicety, I sauntered towards Saint Jerome's meadow, whence I felt morally certain that I should

not return without making an impression. But I could not even get thither, without a proof of my own

As I was crossing a byestreet, a lady of genteel figure, elegantly dressed, came out of a small house, and got

into an hired carriage standing at the door. I stopped short to look at her, and bowed significantly, so as to

convey an intimation that my heart was not insensible. On her part, to show me that her face was not less

lovely than her person, she lifted up her veil for a moment. In the mean time the coach set off, and I stood

stock still in the street, not a little stiffened at this vision. A vastly pretty woman! said I to myself, bless us!

this is just what is wanting to make me perfectly accomplished. If the two ladies who share Mogicon between

them are equally handsome, the scoundrel is in luck! I should be delighted with her for a mistress.

Ruminating on these things, I looked by chance towards the house whence that lovely creature had glided,

I flew like lightning into the house, and found, in a very neat parlour, this venerable and wary matron, who,

taking me for a marquis at least, dropped a low curtsey, and said I doubt not, my lord, but you must have a

bad opinion of a woman who, without the slightest acquaintance, beckons you out of the street; but you will

perhaps judge more favourably of me when you shall know that I do not pay that compliment promiscuously.

You look like a man of fashion! You are perfectly in the right, my old girl, interrupted I, stretching out my

right leg, and throwing the weight of my body on my left hip; mine is, vanity apart, one of the best families in

Spain. It must be so by your looks, replied she, and I will fairly own that I delight in doing a kindness to

people of quality, that is my weak side. I watched you through my window. You looked very earnestly at a

lady who has just left me. Perhaps you may have taken a fancy to her? tell me so plainly. By the honour of

my house, answered I, she has shot me through the heart. I never saw anything so tempting; a most divine

creature! Do bring us acquainted, my dear, and rely on my gratitude. It is worth while to do these little offices

I have told you once for all, replied the old woman, I am entirely devoted to people of condition; it is my

passion to be useful to them: I receive here, for example, a certain class of ladies, whom appearances prevent

from seeing their favourites at home. I lend them my house, and thus the warmth of their constitutions is

indulged, without risk to their characters. Vastly well, quoth I, and you have just done that kindness to the

lady in question? No, answered she, this is a young widow of quality, in want of an admirer; but so difficult

in her choice, that I do not know whether you will do for her, however great your requisites may be. I have

already introduced to her three wellfurnished gallants, but she turned up her nose at them. Oh! egad, my life,

exclaimed I confidently, you have only to stick me in her skirts, I will give you a good account of her, take

my word for it. I long to have a grapple with a beauty of such peremptory demands, they have not yet fallen

in my way. Well, then, said the old woman, you have only to come hither tomorrow at the same hour, your

curiosity shall be satisfied. I will not fail, rejoined I; we shall see whether a young nobleman can miss a

I returned to the little barber's without looking for other adventures, but deeply interested in the event of this.

Therefore, on the following day, I went, in splendid attire, to the old woman's an hour sooner than the time.

My lord, said she, you are punctual, and I take it kindly. To be sure the game is worth the chase. I have seen

our young widow, and we have had a good deal of talk about you. Not a word was to be said; but I have taken

such a liking to you that I cannot hold my tongue. You have made yourself agreeable, and will soon be a

happy man. Between ourselves, the lady is a relishing morsel, her husband did not live long with her; he

glided away like a shadow: she has all the merit of an absolute girl. The good old lady, no doubt, meant one

CH. V. Gil Blas becomes the darling of the fair sex, and makes an interesting acquaintance. 88

of those clever girls, who contrive not to live single, though they live unmarried.

The heroine of the assignation came soon in an hired carriage, as on the day before, dressed very

magnificently. As soon as she came into the room, I led off with five or six coxcombical bows, accompanied

by the most fashionable grimaces. After this, I went up to her with a very familiar air, and said My adored

angel, you behold a gentleman of no mean rank, whom your charms have undone. Your image, since

yesterday, has taken complete possession of my fancy; you have turned a duchess neck and heels out of my

heart, who was beginning to establish a footing there. The triumph is too glorious for me, answered she,

throwing off her veil, but still my transports are not without alloy. Young men of fashion love variety, and

their hearts are, they say, bandied about from one to the other like a piece of base money. Ah! my sovereign

mistress, replied I, let us leave the future to shift for itself; and think only of the present. You are lovely, I am

in love. If my passion is not hateful to you, let it take its course at random. We will embark like true sailors,

set the storms and shipwreck of a long voyage at defiance, and only take the fair weather of the time present

In finishing this speech, I threw myself in raptures at the feet of my nymph; and the better to hit off my

assumed character, pressed her with some little peevishness not to delay my bliss. She seemed a little touched

by my remonstrances, but thought it too soon to yield, and giving me a gentle rebuff Hold, said she, you

are too importunate, this is like a rake. I fear you are but a loose young fellow. For shame, madam, exclaimed

I; can you set your face against what women of the first taste and condition encourage? A prejudice against

what is vulgarly called vice may be all very well for citizens' wives. That is decisive, replied she, there is no

resisting so forcible a plea. I see plainly that with men of your order dissimulation is to no purpose; a woman

must meet you half way. Learn then your victory, added she with an appearance of disorder, as if her modesty

suffered by the avowal; you have inspired me with sentiments such as are new to my heart, and I only wait to

know who you are, that I may take you for my acknowledged lover. I believe you a young lord and a

gentleman, yet there is no trusting to appearances; and however prepossessed I may be in your favour, I

would not give away my affections to a stranger. I recollected at the moment how Don Antonio's servant had

got out of a similar perplexity; and determining, after his example, to pass for my master Madam, said I to

my dainty widow, I will not excuse myself from telling you my name, it is one that will not disparage its

owner. Have you ever heard of Don Matthias de Silva? Yes, replied she; indeed I have seen him with a lady

of my acquaintance. Though considerably improved in impudence, I was a little troubled by this discovery.

Yet I rallied my forces in an instant, and extricated myself with a happy presence of mind. Well then, my fair

one, retorted I, the lady of your acquaintance . . . . knows a lord . . . . of my acquaintance . . . . and I am of his

acquaintance; of his own family, since you must know it. His grandfather married the sisterinlaw of my

father's uncle. You see we are very near relations. My name is Don Caesar. I am the only son of the great

Don Ferdinand de Ribera, slain fifteen years ago, in a battle on the frontiers of Portugal. I could give you all

the particulars of the action; it was a devilish sharp one . . . . but to fight it over again would be losing the

After this discourse I got to be importunate and impassioned, but without bringing matters at all forwarder.

The favours which my goddess winked at my snatching, tended only to make me languish for what she was

more chary of. The tyrant got back to her coach, which was waiting at the door. Nevertheless, I withdrew,

well enough pleased with my success, though it still fell short of the only perfect issue. If said I to myself, I

have obtained indulgences but by halves, it is because this lady, forsooth, is a highborn dame, and thinks it

beneath her quality to play the very woman at the first interview. The pride of pedigree stands in the way of

my advancement just now, but in a few days we shall be better acquainted. To be sure, it did not once come

into my head. that she might be one of those cunning gipsies always on the catch. Yet I liked better to look at

things on the right side than on the wrong, and thus maintained a favourable opinion of my widow. We had

agreed at parting to meet again on the day after the morrow; and the hope of arriving at the summit of my

CH. V. Gil Blas becomes the darling of the fair sex, and makes an interesting acquaintance. 89

With my brain full of joyous traces, I returned to my barber. Having changed my dress, I went to attend my

master at the tenniscourt. I found him at play, and saw that he won; for he was not one of those

impenetrable gamesters who make or mar a fortune without moving a muscle. In prosperity he was flippant

and overbearing, but quite peevish on the losing side. He left the tenniscourt in high spirits, and went for the

Prince's Theatre. I followed him to the boxdoor, then putting a ducat into my hand Here, Gil Blas, said he,

as I have been a winner to day, you shall not be the worse for it; go, divert yourself with your friends, and

come to me about midnight at Arsenia's, where I am to sup with Don Alexo Segiar. He then went in, and I

stood debating with whom I should disburse my ducat, according to the pious will of the founder. I did not

muse long. Clarin, Don Alexo's servant, just then came in my way. I took him to the next tavern, and we

amused ourselves there till midnight. Thence we repaired to Arsenia's house, where Clarin had orders to

attend. A little footboy opened the door, and showed us into a room down stairs, where Arsenia's

waitingwoman, and the lady who held the same office about Florimonde, were laughing ready to split their

The addition of two jolly fellows just come from a good supper, could not be unwelcome to abigails, and to

the abigails of actresses too; but what was my astonishment when in one of these lowly ladies I discovered

my widow, my adorable widow, whom I took for a countess or a marchioness! She appeared equally amazed

to see her dear Don Caesar de Ribera metamorphosed into the valet of a beau. However, we looked at one

another without being out of countenance; indeed, such a tingling sensation of laughter came over us both, as

we could not help indulging in. After which Laura, for that was her name, drawing me aside while Clarin was

speaking to her fellowservant, held out her hand to me very kindly, and said in a low voice Accept this

pledge, Signor Don Caesar; mutual congratulations are more to the purpose than mutual reproaches, my

friend. You topped your part to perfection, and I was not quite contemptible in mine. What say you? confess

now, did not you take me for one of those precious peeresses who are fond of a little smuggled amusement? It

is even so, answered I, but whoever you are, my empress, I have not changed my sentiments with my

paraphernalia. Accept my services in good part, and let the valetdechambre of Don Matthias consummate

what Don Caesar has so happily begun. Get you gone, replied she, I like you ten times better in your natural

than in your artificial character. You are as a man what I am as a woman, and that is the greatest compliment

I can pay you. You are admitted into the number of my adorers. We have no longer any need of the old

woman as a blind, you may come and see me whenever you like. We theatrical ladies are no slaves to form,

but live higgledy piggledy with the men. I allow that the effects are sometimes visible, but the public wink

hard at our irregularities; the drama's patrons, as you well know, give the drama's laws, and absolve us from

We went no further, because there were bystanders. The conversation be came general, lively, jovial,

inclining to loose jokes, not very carefully wrapped up. We all of us bore a bob. Arsenia's attendant above all,

my amiable Laura, was very conspicuous; but her wit was so extremely nimble, that her virtue could never

overtake it. Our masters and the actresses on the floor above, raised incessant peals of laughter, which

reached us in the regions below; and probably the entertainment was much alike with the celestials and the

infernals. If all the knowing remarks had been written down, which escaped from the philosophers that night

assembled at Arsenia's, I really think it would have been a manual for the rising generation. Yet we could not

arrest the chaste moon in her progress; the rising of that blab, the sun, parted us. Clarin followed the heels of

My master getting up the next day, received a note from Don Alexo Segiar, desiring his company

immediately. We went, and found there the Marquis de Zenette, and another young nobleman of

prepossessing manners, whom I had never seen. Don Matthias, said Segiar to my protector, introducing the

stranger, give me leave to present Don Pompeyo de Castro, a relation of mine. He has been at the court of

Portugal almost from his childhood. He reached Madrid last night, and returns to Lisbon tomorrow. He can

allow me only one day. I wish to make the most of the precious moments, and thought of asking you and the

Marquis de Zenette to make out the time agreeably. Thereupon my master and Don Alexo's relation

embraced heartily, and complimented one an other in the most extravagant manner. I was much pleased with

They dined with Segiar; and the gentlemen, after the dessert, amused themselves at play till the theatre

opened. Then they went all together to the Prince's House, to see a new tragedy, called The Queen of

Carthage. At the end of the piece they returned to supper, and their conversation ran first on the composition,

then upon the actors. As for the work, cried Don Matthias, I think very lightly of it. Eneas is a more pious

blockhead there than in the Eneid. But it must be owned that the piece was played divinely. What does Signor

Don Pompeyo think of it? He does not seem to agree with me. Gentlemen, said the illustrious stranger with a

smile, you are so enraptured with your actors, and still more with your actresses, that I scarcely dare avow my

dissent. That is very prudent, interrupted Don Alexo with a sneer, your criticisms would be ill received. You

should be tender of our actresses before the trumpeters of their fame. We carouse with them every day, we

warrant them sound in their conceptions: we would give vouchers for the justness of their expression if it

were necessary. No doubt of it, answered his kinsman, you would do the same kind office by their lives and

Your ladies of the sock and buskin at Lisbon, said the Marquis de Zenette, laughing, are doubtless far

superior? They certainly are, replied Don Pompeyo. They are some of them at least perfect in their cast. And

these, resumed the Marquis, would be warranted by you in their conceptions and expressions? I have no

personal acquaintance with them, rejoined Don Pompeyo. I am not of their revels, and can judge of their

merit without partiality. Do you, in good earnest, think your company firstrate? No, really, said the Marquis,

I think no such thing, and only plead the cause of a few individuals. I give up all the rest. Will you not allow

extraordinary powers to the actress who played Dido? Did she not personate that queen with the dignity, and

at the same time with all the bewitching charms, calculated to realize our idea of the character? Could you

help admiring the skill with which she seizes on the passions of the spectator, and harmonizes their tone to

the vibrations she purposes to produce? She may be called perfect in the exquisite art of declaiming. I agree

with you, said Don Pompeyo, that she can touch the string either of terror or of pity: never did any actress

come closer to the heart, and the performance is altogether fine; but still she is not without her defects. Two

or three things disgusted me in her playing. Would she denote surprise? she glances her eyes to and fro in a

most extravagant manner, altogether unbecoming her supposed majesty as a princess. Add to this, that in

swelling her voice, which is of itself sound and mellifluous, she goes out of her natural key, and assumes a

harsh ranting tone. Besides, it would seem as if she might be suspected in more than one passage, of not very

clearly comprehending her author. Yet I would in candour rather suppose her wanting in diligence than

As far as I see, said Don Matthias to the critic, you will never write complimentary odes to our actresses!

Pardon me, answered Don Pompeyo. I can discover high talent through all their imperfections. I must say that

I was enchanted with the chambermaid in the interlude. What fine natural parts! With what grace she treads

the stage! Has she anything pointed to deliver? she heightens it by an arch smile, with a keen glance and

sarcastic emphasis, which convey more to the understanding than the words to the ear. It might be objected

that she sometimes gives too much scope to her animal spirits, and exceeds the limits of allowable freedom,

but that would be hypercritical. There is one bad habit I should strongly advise her to correct. Sometimes in

the very crisis of the action, and in an affecting passage, she bursts in all at once upon the interest with some

misplaced jest, to curry favour with the mob of barren spectators. The pit, you will say, is caught by her

And what do you think of the men? interrupted the Marquis; you must give them no quarter, since you have

handled the women so roughly. Not so, said Don Pompeyo. There are some promising young actors, and I am

particularly well pleased with that corpulent performer who played the part of Dido's prime minister. His

recitation is unaffected, and he declaims just as they do in Portugal. If you can bear such a fellow as that, said

Segiar, you must be charmed with the representative of Eneas. Did not you think him a great, an original

performer? Very original, indeed, answered the critic; his inflections are quite his own, they are as shrill as an

hautboy. Almost always out of nature, he rattles the impressive words of the sentence off his tongue, while he

labours and lingers on the expletives; the poor conjunctions are frightened at their own report as they go off.

He entertained me excessively, and especially when he was expressing in confidence his distress at

abandoning the princess; never was grief more ludicrously depicted. Fair and softly, cousin, replied Don

Alexo; you will make us believe at last that good taste is not greatly cultivated at the court of Portugal. Do

you know that the actor of whom we are speaking is esteemed a phenomenon? Did you not observe what

thunders of applause he called down? He cannot therefore be contemptible. That therefore does not prove the

proposition, replied Don Pompeyo. But, gentlemen, let us lay aside, I beseech you, the injudicious suffrages

of the pit; they are often given to performers very unseasonably. Indeed, their boisterous tokens of

approbation are more frequently bestowed on paltry copies than on original merit, as Phedrus teaches us by

an ingenious fable. Allow me to repeat it as follows: The whole population of a city was assembled in a

large square to see a pantomime played. Among the performers there was one whose feats were applauded

every instant. This buffoon, at the end of the entertainment, wished to close the scene with a new device. He

came alone upon the stage, stooping clown, covering his head with his mantle, and began counterfeiting the

squeak of a pig. He acquitted himself so naturally as to be suspected of having the animal itself concealed

within the folds of his drapery. He stripped, but there was no pig. The assembly rang with more furious

applause than ever. A peasant, among the spectators, was disgusted at this misplaced admiration. Gentlemen,

exclaimed he, you are in the wrong to be so delighted with this buffoon, he is not so good a mimic as you

take him for. I can enact the pig better; if you doubt it, only attend here this time tomorrow. The people,

prejudiced in the cause of their favourite, collected in greater numbers on the next day, rather to hiss the

countryman than to see what he could do. The rivals appeared on the stage. The buffoon began, and was more

applauded than the day before. Then the farmer stooping down in his turn, with his head wrapped up in his

cloak, pulled the ear of a real pig under his arm, and made it squeal most horribly. Yet this enlightened

audience persisted in giving the preference to their favourite, and hooted the countryman off the boards; who

producing the pig before he went, said Gentlemen, you are not hissing me, but the original pig. So much

Cousin, said Don Alexo, your fable is rather satirical. Nevertheless, in spite of your pig, we will not bate an

inch of our opinion. But let us change the subject, this is grown threadbare. Then you set off tomorrow, do

what we can to keep you with us longer? I should like, answered his kinsman, to protract my stay with you,

but it is not in my power. I have told you already that I am come to the court of Spain on an affair of state.

Yesterday, on my arrival, I had a conference with the prime minister; I am to see him tomorrow morning,

and shall set out immediately afterwards on my return to Lisbon. You are become quite a Portuguese,

observed Segiar, and, to all appearance, we shall lose you entirely from Madrid. I think otherwise, replied

Don Pompeyo, I have the honour to stand well with the King of Portugal, and have many motives of

attachment to that court; yet with all the kindness that sovereign has testified towards me, would you believe

that I have been on the point of quitting his dominions for ever. Indeed! by what strange accident? said the

Marquis. Give us the history, I beseech you. Very readily, answered Don Pompeyo, and at the same time my

DON ALEXO knows, that from my boyish days, my passion was for a military life. Our own country being

at peace, I went into Portugal; thence to Africa with the Duke of Braganza, who gave me a commission. I was

a younger brother, with as slender a provision as most in Spain; so that my only chance was in attracting the

notice of the commanderinchief by my bravery. I was so far from deficient in my duty, that the Duke

promoted me, step by step, to one of the most honourable posts in the service. After a long war, of which you

all know the issue, I devoted myself to the court; and the King, on strong testimonials from the general

officers, rewarded me with a considerable pension. Alive to that sovereign's generosity, I lost no opportunity

of proving my gratitude by my diligence. I was in attendance as often as etiquette would allow me to offer

myself to his notice. By this conduct I gained insensibly the love of that prince, and received new favours

One day, when I distinguished myself in running at the ring, and in a bull fight preceding it, all the court

extolled my strength and dexterity. On my return home, with my honours thick upon me, I found there a note,

informing me that a lady, my conquest over whom ought to flatter me more than all the glory I had gained

that day, wished to have the pleasure of my company; and that I had only to attend in the evening, at a place

marked out in the letter. This was more than all my public triumphs, and I concluded the writer to be a

woman of the first quality. You may guess that I did not loiter by the way. An old woman in waiting, as my

guide, conducted me by a little gardengate into a large house, and left me in an elegant closet, saying

Stay here, I will acquaint my mistress with your arrival. I observed a great many articles of value in the

closet, which was magnificently illuminated; but this splendour only caught my attention as confirming me in

my previous opinion of the lady's high rank. If appearances strengthened that conjecture, her noble and

majestic air on her entrance left no doubt on my mind. Yet I was a little out in my calculation.

Noble sir, said she, after the step I have taken in your favour it were impertinent to disown my partiality.

Your brilliant actions of today, in presence of the court, were not the inspirers of my sentiments, they only

urge forward this avowal. I have seen you more than once, have inquired into your character, and the result

has determined me to follow the impulse of my heart. But do not suppose that you are well with a Duchess. I

am but the widow of a captain in the King's Guards; yet there is something to throw a radiance round your

victory . . . . the preference you have gained over one of the first noblemen in the kingdom. The Duke

d'Almeyda loves me, and presses his suit with ardour, yet without success. My vanity only induces me to bear

Though I saw plainly, by this address, that I had got in with a coquet, my presiding star was not a whit out of

my good graces for involving me in this adventure. Donna Hortensia, for that was the lady's name, was just in

the ripeness and luxuriance of youth and dazzling beauty. Nay, more, she had refused the possession of her

heart to the earnest entreaties of a duke, and offered it unsolicited to me. What a feather in the cap of a

Spanish cavalier! I prostrated myself at Hortensia's feet, to thank her for her favours. I talked just as a man of

gallantry always does talk, and she had reason to be satisfied with the extravagance of my acknowledgments.

Thus we parted the best friends in the world, on the terms of meeting every evening when the Duke

d'Almeyda was prevented from coming; and. she promised to give me due notice of his absence. The bargain

But the pleasures of this life are transitory. With all the lady's precautions to conceal our private treaty of

commerce from my rival, he found means of gaining a knowledge, of which it concerned us greatly to keep

him ignorant: a disloyal chamber maid divulged the state secret. This nobleman, naturally generous, but

proud, selfsufficient, and violent, was exasperated at my presumption. Anger and jealousy set him beside

himself. Taking counsel only with his rage, he resolved on an infamous revenge. One night when I was with

Hortensia, he waylaid me at the little gardengate, with all his servants provided with cudgels. As soon as I

came out, he ordered me to be seized, and beat to death by these wretches. Lay on, said he, let the rash

intruder give up the ghost under your chastisement; thus shall his insolence be punished. No sooner had he

finished these words, than his myrmidons assaulted me in a body, and gave me such a beating, as to stretch

me senseless on the ground: after which they hurried off with their master, to whom this butchery had been a

delicious pastime. I lay the remainder of the night, just as they had left me. At daybreak some people passed

by, who, finding that life was still in me, had the humanity to carry me to a surgeon. Fortunately my wounds

were not mortal; and, falling into skilful hands, I was perfectly cured in two months. At the end of that period

I made my appearance again at court, and resumed my former way of life, except that I steered clear of

Hortensia, who on her part made no further attempt to renew the acquaintance, because the Duke, on that

As my adventure was the town talk, and I was known to be no coward, people were astonished to see me as

quiet as if I had received no affront; for I kept my thoughts to myself; and seemed to have no quarrel with any

man living. No one knew what to think of my counterfeited insensibility. Some imagined that, in spite of my

courage, the rank of the aggressor overawed me, and occasioned my tacit submission. Others, with more

reason, mistrusted my silence, and considered my inoffensive demeanour as a cover to my revenge. The King

was of opinion with these last, that I was not a man to put up with an insult, and that I should not be wanting

to myself at a convenient opportunity. To discover my real intentions, he sent for me one day into his closet,

where he said: Don Pompeyo, I know what accident has befallen you, and am surprised, I own, at your

forbearance. You are certainly acting a part. Sire, answered I, how can I know whom to challenge? I was

attacked in the night by persons unknown: it is a misfortune of which I must make the best. No, no, replied

the King, I am not to be duped by these evasive answers. The whole story has reached my ears. The Duke

d'Almeyda has touched your honour to the quick. You are nobly born, and a Castilian: I know what that

double character requires. You cherish hostile designs. Admit me a party to your purposes; it must be so.

Since your majesty commands it, resumed I, my sentiments shall be laid open without reserve. Yes, sir, I

meditate a severe retribution. Every man, wearing such a name as mine, must account for its untarnished

lustre with his family. You know the unworthy treatment I have experienced; and I purpose assassinating the

Duke d'Almeyda, as a mode of revenge correspondent to the injury. I shall plunge a dagger in his bosom, or

shoot him through the head, and escape, if I can, into Spain. This is my design.

It is violent, said the King: and yet I have little to say against it, after the provocation which the Duke

d'Almeyda has given you. He is worthy of the punishment you destine for him. But do not be in a hurry with

your project. Leave me to devise a method of bringing you together again as friends. Oh! sir, exclaimed I

with vexation, why did you extort my secret from me? What expedient can . . . . If mine is not to your

satisfaction, interrupted he, you may execute your first intention. I do not mean to abuse your confidence. I

I was greatly puzzled to guess by what means the King designed to terminate this affair amicably: but thus it

was. He sent to speak with the Duke d'Almeyda in private. Duke, said he, you have insulted Don Pompeyo de

Castro. You are not ignorant that he is a man of noble birth, a soldier who has served with credit, and stands

high in my favour. You owe him reparation. I am not of a temper to refuse it, answered the Duke. If he

complains of my outrageous behaviour, I am ready to justify it by the law of arms. Some thing very different

must be done, replied the King: a Spanish gentleman understands the point of honour too well to fight on

equal terms with a cowardly assassin. I can use no milder term; and you can only atone for the heinousness of

your conduct, by presenting a cane in person to your antagonist, and offering to submit yourself to its

discipline. Oh heaven! exclaimed the Duke: what! sir, would you have a man of my rank degrade, debase

himself before a simple gentleman, and submit to be caned! No, replied the monarch, I will oblige Don

Pompeyo to promise not to touch you. Only offer him the cane, and ask his pardon: that is all I require from

you. And that is too much, sir, interrupted the Duke d'Almeyda warmly; I had rather remain exposed to all the

secret machinations of his resentment. Your life is dear to me, said the king; and I should wish this affair to

have no bad consequences. To terminate it with less disgust to yourself, I will be the only witness of the

The King was obliged to stretch his influence over the Duke to the utmost, before he could induce him to so

mortifying a step. However, the peremptory monarch effected his purpose, and then sent for me. He related

the particulars of his conversation with my enemy, and inquired if I should be content with the stipulated

reparation. I answered, yes: and gave my word that, far from striking the offender, I would not even accept

the cane, when he presented it. With this understanding, the Duke and myself at a certain hour attended the

King, who took us into his closet. Come, said he to the Duke, acknowledge your fault, and deserve to be

forgiven by the humility of your contrition. Then my antagonist made his apology, and offered me the cane in

his hand. Don Pompeyo, said the monarch unexpectedly, take the cane, and let not my presence prevent you

from doing justice to your outraged honour. I release you from your promise not to strike the Duke. No, sir,

answered I, it is enough that he has submitted to the indignity of the offer: an offended Spaniard asks no

more. Well, then! replied the King, since you are content with this satisfaction, you may both of you at once

assume the privilege of a gentlemanly quarrel. Measure your swords, and discuss the question honourably. It

is what I most ardently desire, exclaimed the Duke d'Almeyda in a menacing tone; for that only is competent

With these words, he went away full of rage and shame; and sent to tell me, two hours after, that he was

waiting for me, in a retired place. I kept the appointment, and found this nobleman ready to fight lustily. He

was not five and forty; deficient neither in courage nor in skill: so that the match was fair and equal. Come

on, Don Pompeyo, said he, let us terminate our difference here. Our hostility ought to be reciprocally mortal;

yours, for my aggression, and mine, for having asked your pardon. These words were no sooner out of his

mouth, than he drew upon me so suddenly, that I had no time to reply. He pressed very closely upon me at

first, but I had the good fortune to put by all his thrusts. I acted on the offensive in my turn: the encounter was

evidently with a man equally skilled in defence or in attack; and. there is no knowing what might have been

the issue, if he had not made a false step in retiring, and fallen backwards. I stood still immediately, and said

to the duke, Recover yourself. Why give me any quarter? he answered. Your forbearance only aggravates my

disgrace. I will not take advantage of an accident, replied I; it would only tarnish my glory. Once more

Don Pompeyo, said he rising, after this act of generosity, honour allows me not to renew the attack upon you.

What would the world say of me, were I to wound you mortally? I should be branded as a coward for having

murdered a man, at whose mercy I had just before lain prostrate. I cannot therefore again lift my arm against

your life, and I feel my resentful passions subsiding into the sweet emotions of gratitude. Don Pompeyo, let

us mutually lay aside our hatred. Let us go still further; let us be friends. Ah! my lord, exclaimed I, so

flattering a proposal I joyfully accept. I proffer you my sincere friendship; and, as an earnest, promise never

more to approach Donna Hortensia, though she herself should invite me. It is my duty, said he, to yield that

lady to you. Justice requires me to give her up, since her affections are yours already. No, no, interrupted I;

you love her. Her partiality in my favour would give you uneasiness; I sacrifice my own pleasures to your

peace. Ah! too generous Castilian, replied the Duke, embracing me, your sentiments are truly noble. With

what remorse do they strike me! Grieved and ashamed, I look back on the outrage you have sustained. The

reparation in the King's chamber seems now too trifling. A better recompense awaits you. To obliterate all

remembrance of your shame, take one of my nieces whose hand is at my disposal. She is a rich heiress, not

I made my acknowledgments to the Duke in terms such as the high honour of his alliance might suggest, and

married his niece a few days afterwards. All the court complimented this nobleman on having made such

generous amends to an insulted rival; and my friends took part in my joy at the happy issue of an adventure

which might have led to the most melancholy consequences. From this time, gentlemen, I have lived happily

at Lisbon. I am the idol of my wife, and have not sunk the lover in the husband. The Duke d'Almeyda gives

me new proofs of friendship every day; and I may venture to boast of standing high in the King of Portugal's

good graces. The importance of my errand hither sufficiently assures me of his confidence.

CH. VIII. An accident, in consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another place. 95

SUCH was Don Pompeyo's story, which Don Alexo's servant and myself over heard, though we were

prudently sent away before he began his recital. Instead of withdrawing, we skulked behind the door, which

we had left half open, and from that station we did not miss a word. After this, the company went on

drinking; but they did not prolong their carousals till the morning, because Don Pompeyo, who was to speak

with the prime minister, wished for a little rest beforehand. The Marquis de Zenette and my master took a

We went to bed for once before daybreak; and Don Matthias, when he awoke, invested me with a new office.

Gil Blas, said he, take pen, ink, and paper, and write two or three letters as I shall dictate: you shall

henceforth be my secretary. Well and good! said I to myself, a plurality of functions. As footman, I follow

my master's heels; as valetdechambre, I help him to dress; and write for him as his secretary. Heaven be

praised for my apotheosis! Like the triple Hecate of the Pantheon, I am to enact three different characters at

the same time. Can you guess my intention? continued he. Thus it is: but take care what you are about; your

life may depend on it. As I am continually meeting with fellows who boast of their success among the

women, I mean, by way of getting the upper hand, to fill my pockets with fictitious loveletters, and read

them in company. It will be amusing enough. Happier than my competitors, who make conquests only for the

pleasure of the boast, I shall take the credit of intrigue, and spare myself the labour. But vary your writing, so

I then sat down to comply with the commands of Don Matthias, who first dictated a tender epistle to this tune

You did not keep your promise tonight. Ah! Don Matthias, how will you exculpate yourself? My error

was a cruel one! But you punish me deservedly for my vanity, in fancying that business and amusement were

all to give way before the pleasure of seeing Donna Clara de Mendoza! After this pretty note, he made me

write another, as if from a lady who sacrificed a prince to him; and then a third, whose fair writer offered, if

she could rely on his discretion, to embark with him for the shores of Cytherean enchantment. It was not

enough to dictate these lovesick strains; he forced me to subscribe them with the most highflying names in

Madrid. I could not forbear hinting at some little hazard in all this, but he begged me to keep my sage

counsels till they were called for. I was obliged to hold my tongue, and dispatch his orders out of hand. That

done, he got up, and dressed with my assistance. The letters were put into his pocket, and out he went. I

followed him to dinner with Don Juan de Moncade, who entertained five or six gentlemen of his

There was a grand setout, and mirth, the best relish, was not wanting to the banquet. All the guests

contributed to enliven the conversation, some by wit and humour, others by anecdotes of which the relaters

were the heroes. My master would not lose so fine an opportunity of bringing our joint performances to bear.

He read them audibly, and with so much assurance, that probably the whole party, with the exception of his

secretary, was taken in by the device. Among the company, before whom this trick was so impudently played

off, there was one person, by name Don Lope de Velasco. This person, a very grave don, instead of making

himself merry like the rest with the fictitious triumphs of the reader, asked him coolly if the conquest of

Donna Clara had been achieved with any great difficulty? Less than the least, answered Don Matthias; the

advances were all on her side. She saw me in public, and took a fancy to my person. A scout was

commissioned to follow me, and thus she got at my name and condition. She wrote to me, and gave me an

appointment at an hour of the night when the house was sure to be quiet. I was true as the needle to the pole;

her bedchamber was the place . . . . But prudence and delicacy forbid my describing what passed there.

At this instance of tender regard for the lady's character, Signor de Velasco betrayed some very passionate

workings in his countenance. It was easy to see the interest he took in the subject. All these letters, said he to

my master, looking at him with an eye of indignation and contempt, are infamous forgeries, and above all that

which you boast of having received from Donna Clara de Mendoza. There is not in all Spain a more modest

young creature than her. self. For these two years, a gentleman, at least your equal in birth and personal merit,

has been trying every method of insinuating himself into her heart. Scarcely have his assiduities extorted the

CH. VIII. An accident, in consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another place. 96

slightest encouragement: but yet he may flatter himself that, if anything beyond common civility had been

granted at all, it would have been to him only. Well! Who says to the contrary? interrupted Don Matthias in a

bantering way. I agree with you, that the lady is a very pretty behaved young lady. On my part, I am a very

pretty behaved young gentleman. Ergo, you may rest assured that nothing took place between us but what

was pretty and well behaved. Indeed! This is too much, interrupted Don Lope in his turn; let us lay aside this

unseasonable jesting. You are an impostor. Donna Clara never gave you an appointment by night. Her

reputation shall not be blackened by your ribaldry. But prudence and delicacy forbid my describing what

must pass between you and me. With this retort on his lips, he looked contemptuously round, and withdrew

with a menacing aspect, which anticipated serious consequences to my judgment. My master, whose courage

was better than his cause, held the threats of Don Lope in derision. A blockhead! exclaimed he, bursting into

a loud fit of laughter. Our knightserrant used to tilt for the beauty of their mistresses, this fellow would

engage in the lists for the forlorn hope of virtue in his; he is more ridiculous than his prototypes.

Velasco's retiring, in vain opposed by Moncade, occasioned no interruption to the merriment. The party,

without thinking further about it, kept the ball up briskly, and did not part till they had made free with the

next day. We went to bed, that is, my master and myself, about five o'clock in the morning. Sleep sat heavy

on my eyelids, and, as I thought, was taking permanent possession thereof; but I reckoned without my host,

or rather without our porter, who came and waked me in an hour, to say that there was a lad inquiring for me

at the door. Oh! thou infernal porter, muttered I indistinctly, through the interstices of a long yawn, do you

consider that I have but now got to bed? Tell the little rascal that I am just asleep; he must come again by

andby. He insists, replied Cerberus, on speaking with you instantly; his business cannot wait. As that was

the case I got up, put on nothing but my breeches and doublet, and went down stairs, swearing and gaping.

My friend, said I, be so good as to let me know what urgent affair procures me the honour of seeing you so

early? I have a letter, answered he, to deliver personally into the hands of Signor Don Matthias, to be read by

him without loss of time; it is of the last consequence to him pray show me into his room. As I thought the

matter looked serious, I took the liberty of disturbing my master. Excuse me, said I, for waking you, but the

pressing nature . . . . What do you want? interrupted he, just in my style with the porter. Sir, said the lad who

was at my elbow, here is a letter from Don Lope de Velasco. Don Matthias looked at the cover, broke it, and

after reading the contents, said to the messenger of Don Lope My good fellow, I never get up before noon,

let the party be ever so agreeable; judge whether I can be expected to be stirring by six in the morning for a

smallsword recreation. You may tell your master, that if he chooses to kick his heels at the spot till

halfpast twelve, we will come and see how he looks there carry him that answer. With this flippant

speech he plunged down snugly under the bed clothes and fell fast asleep again as if nothing had happened.

Between eleven and twelve he got up and dressed himself with the utmost composure, and went out, telling

me that there was no occasion for my attendance: but I was too much on the tenterhooks about the result to

mind his orders. I sneaked after him to Saint Jerome's meadow, where I saw Don Lope de Velasco waiting

for him. I took my station to watch them; and was an eyewitness to all the circumstances of their rencounter.

They saluted, and began their fierce debate without delay. The engagement lasted long. They exchanged

thrusts alternately, with equal skill and mettle. The victory, how ever, was on the side of Don Lope: he ran

my master through, laid him helpless on the ground, and made his escape, with apparent satisfaction at the

severe reprisal. I ran up to the unfortunate Don Matthias, and found him in a most desperate situation. The

sight melted me. I could not help weeping at a catastrophe to which I had been an involuntary contributor.

Nevertheless, with all sympathy, I had still my little wits about me. Home went I in a hurry, without saying a

word. I made up a bundle of my own goods and chattels, inadvertently slipping in some odd articles

belonging to my master: and when I had deposited this with the barber, where my dress as a fine gentleman

was still lodged, I published the news of the fatal accident. Any gaper might have it for the trouble of

listening; and above all, I took care to make Rodriguez acquainted with it. He would have been extremely

afflicted, but that his own proceedings in this delicate case required all his attention. He called the servants

together, ordered them to follow him, and we went all together to Saint Jerome's meadow. Don Matthias was

taken up alive, but he died three hours after he was brought home. Thus ended the life of Signor Don

CH. VIII. An accident, in consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another place. 97

Matthias de Silva, only for having taken a fancy to reading supposititious loveletters unseasonably.

Some days after the funeral, the establishment was paid up and discharged. I fixed my headquarters with the

little barber, in a very close connection with whom I began to live. It seemed to promise more pleasure than

with Melendez. As I was in no want of money, it was time enough to think of another place: besides, I had

got to be rather nice on that head. I would not go into service any more, but in families above the vulgar. In

short, I was determined to inquire very strictly into the character of a new place. The best would not be too

good; such high pretensions did the late valet of a young nobleman think himself entitled to assume above the

Waiting till fortune should throw a situation in my way, worthy to be honoured by my acceptance, I thought I

could not do better than to devote my leisure to my charming Laura, whom I had not seen since the pleasant

occurrence of our double discovery. I could not venture on dressing as Don Caesar de Ribera; it would have

been an act of madness to have assumed that style but as a disguise. Besides that my own suit was not much

out of condition, all smaller articles had propagated miraculously in the aforesaid bundle. I made myself up,

therefore, with the barber's aid, as a sort of middle man between Don Caesar and Gil Blas. In this demi

character, I knocked at Arsenia's door. Laura was alone in the parlour where we had met last. Ah! is it you?

cried she, as soon as she saw me; I thought you were lost. You have had leave to come and see me for this

I made my apology on the score of my master's death, with my own engagements consequent thereupon; and

I added, in the spirit of gallantry, that in my greatest perplexities, my lovely Laura had always been foremost

in my thoughts. That being so, said she, I have no more reproaches to make; and I will frankly own that I

have thought of you. As soon as I was acquainted with the untimely end of Don Matthias, a plan occurred to

me, probably not quite displeasing to you. I have heard my mistress say some time ago, that she wanted a sort

of man of business; a good arithmetician, to keep an exact account of our outgoings. I fixed my affections on

your lordship; you seem exactly calculated for such an office. I feel myself, answered I, a steward by

inspiration. I have read all that Aristotle has written on finance; and as for reducing it to the modern system of

book keeping . . . . But, my dear girl, there is one impediment in the way. What impediment? said Laura. I

have sworn, replied I, never again to live with a commoner: I have sworn by Styx, or something else as

binding. If Jupiter could not burst the links of such an oath, judge whether a poor servant ought not to be

bound by it. What do you mean by a commoner? re joined the impetuous abigail: for what do you take us

actresses? Do you take us for the ribs of the limbs of the law? for attorneys' wives? I would have you to

know, my friend, that actresses rank with the first nobility; being only common to the uncommon, and

On that footing, my uncommon commoner, said I, the post you have destined for me is mine: I shall not

lower my dignity by accepting it. No, to be sure, said she: backwards and forwards between a puppy of

fashion and a shewolf of the stage; why, it is exactly preserving an equilibrium of rank in the creation. We

are sympathetic animals, just on a level with the people of quality. We have our equipages in the same style;

we give our little suppers on the same scale; and on the broad ground we are just of as much use in civil

society. In fact, to draw a parallel between a marquis and a player through the space of four and twenty hours,

they are just on a par. The marquis, for three fourths of the time, ranks above the player by political courtesy

and sufferance: the player, during his hour on the stage, overtops the marquis in the part of an emperor or a

king, which he better knows how to enact. Thus there seems to be a balance between natural and political

nobility, which places us at least on a level with the live lumber of the court. Yes, truly, replied I, you are a

match for one another, there is no gainsaying it. Bless their dear hearts! the players are not men of straw, as I

foolishly believed, and you have made my mouth water to serve such a worshipful fraternity. Well, then!

resumed she, you have only to come back again in two days. That time will be sufficient to incline my

mistress in your favour; I will speak up for you. She is a little under my influence; I do not fear bringing you

I thanked Laura for her good dispositions. My gratitude took the readiest way to prove itself to her

comprehension; and my tender thrillings expressed more than words. We had a pretty long conversation

together, and it might have lasted till this time, if a little skipping fellow had not come to tell my nymph of

the side scenes that Arsenia was inquiring for her. We parted. I left the house, in the sweet hope of soon

living there scotfree; and my face was shown up again at the door in two days. I was looking out for you,

said my accomplished scout, to assure you that you are a messmate at this house. Come, follow me; I will

introduce you to my mistress. At these words, she led me into a suite of five or six rooms on a floor, in a

What luxury! What magnificence! I thought myself in presence of a vicequeen, or, to mend the poverty of the

comparison, in a fairy palace, where all the riches of the earth were collected. In fact, there were the

productions of many people and of many countries, so that one might describe this residence as the temple of

a goddess, whither every traveller brought some rare product of his native land, as a votive offering. The

divinity was reclining on a voluptuous satin sofa: she was lovely in my eyes, and pampered with the fumes of

daily sacrifices. She was in a tempting dishabille, and her polished hands were elegantly busy about a new

headdress for her appearance that evening. Madam, said the abigail, here is that said steward; take my word

for it, you will never get one more to your liking. Arsenia looked at me very inquisitively, and did not find

me disagreeable. Why, this is something, Laura, cried she; a very smart youth truly: I foresee that we shall do

very well together. Then directing her discourse to me, Young man, added she, you suit me to a hair, and I

have only one observation to make: you will be pleased with me, if I am so with you. I answered that I should

do my utmost to serve her to her heart's content. As I found that the bargain was struck, I went immediately

to fetch in my own little accommodations, and returned to take formal possession.

IT was near the time of the doors opening. My mistress told me to attend her to the theatre with Laura. We

went into her dressing room, where she threw off her ordinary attire, and assumed a more splendid costume

for the stage. When the performance began, Laura shewed me the way, and seated herself by my side where I

could see and hear the actors to advantage. They disgusted me for the most part, doubtless because Don

Pompeyo had prejudiced me against them. Several of them were loudly applauded, but the fable of the pig

Laura told me the names of the actors and actresses as they made their entrances. Nor did she stop there, for

the hussy gave some highly seasoned anecdotes into the bargain. Her characters were, crackbrain for this,

impertinent fellow for that. That delicate sample of sin, who depends on her wantonness for her attractions,

goes by the name of Rosarda: a bad speculation for the company! She ought to be sent with the next cargo to

New Spain, she may answer the purpose of the viceroy. Take particular notice of that brilliant star now

coming forward; that magnificent setting sun, increasing in bulk as its fires become less vivid. That is

Casilda. If from that distant day when she first laid herself open to her lovers, she had required from each of

them a brick to build a pyramid, like an ancient Egyptian princess, the edifice by this time would have

mounted to the third heaven. In short, Laura tore all character to pieces by her scandal. Heaven forgive her

And yet I must own my weakness. I was in love with the wench, though her morals were not strictly pure.

She scandalized with so winning a malignity that one liked her the better for it. Off went the jillflirt between

the acts, to see if Arsenia wanted her; but instead of coming straight back to her place, she amused herself

behind the scenes, in laying herself out for the little flatteries of all the wheedling fellows. I dogged her once,

and found that she had a very large acquaintance. No less than three players did I reckon up, who stopped to

chat with her one after the other, and they seemed to be on a very improvable footing. This was not quite so

well; and for the first time in my life I felt what jealousy was. I returned to my seat so absent and out of

spirits, that Laura remarked it as soon as she came back to me. What is the matter, Gil Blas, said she with

astonishment; what blue devil has perched upon your shoulder in my absence? You look gloomy and out of

temper. My fairy queen, answered I, it is not without reason, you have an ugly kick in your gallop. I have

observed you with the players . . . . So, so! An admirable subject for a long face, interrupted she with a laugh.

What! That is your trouble, is it? Why really! You are a very silly swain; but you will get better notions

among us. You will fall by degrees into our easy manners. No jealousy, my dear creature, you will be

completely laughed out of it in the theatrical world. The passion is scarcely known there. Fathers, husbands,

brothers, uncles, and cousins, are all upon a liberal plan of community, and often make a strange jumble of

After having warned me to take no umbrage, but to look at everything like a philosophical spectator, she

vowed that I was the happy mortal who had found the way to her heart. She then declared that she should

love me always, and only me. On this assurance, which a man might have doubted without criminal

scepticism, I promised her not to be alarmed any more, and kept my word. I saw her, on that very evening,

whisper and giggle with more men than one. At the end of the play we returned home with our mistress,

whither Florimonde came soon after to supper, with three old noblemen and a player. Besides Laura and

myself, the establishment consisted of a cookmaid, a coachman, and a little footboy. We all laboured in our

respective vocations. The lady of the fryingpan, no less an adept than Dame Jacintha, was assisted in her

cookery by the coachman. The waitingwoman and the little footboy laid the cloth, and I set out the

sideboard, magnificently furnished with plate, offered up at the shrine of our greenroom goddess. There was

every variety of wines, and I played the cupbearer, to show my mistress the versatility of my talents. I

sweated at the impudence of the actresses during supper; they gave themselves quality airs, and affected the

tone of high life. Far from giving their guests all their style and titles, they did not even vouchsafe a simple

"Your lordship," but called them familiarly by their proper names. To be sure, the old fools encouraged their

vanity by forgetting their own distance. The player, for his part, in the habits of the heroic cast, lived on equal

terms with them; he challenged them to drink, and in every respect took the upper hand. In good truth, said I

to myself, while Laura was demonstrating the equality of the Marquis and the comedian during the day, she

might have drawn a still stronger inference for the night, since they pass it so merrily in drinking together.

Arsenia and Florimonde were naturally frolicsome. A thousand broad hints escaped them, intermingled with

small favours, and then a coquettish revolt at their own freedom, which were all seasoned exactly to the taste

of these old sinners. While my mistress was entertaining one of them with a little harmless toying, her friend,

between the other elders, had not taken the cue of Susanna. While I was contemplating this picture, which

had but too many attractions for a knowing youth like me, the dessert was brought in. Then I set the bottles

and glasses on the table, and made my escape to sup with Laura, who was waiting for me. How now! Gil

Blas, said she, what do you think of those noblemen abovestairs? Doubtless, answered I, they are deeply

smitten with Arsenia and Florimonde. No, replied she, they are old sensualists, who hang about our sex

without any particular attachment. All they ask is some little frivolous compliance, and they are generous

enough to pay well for the least trifle of amorous endearment. Heaven be praised, Florimonde and my

mistress are at present without any serious engagements; I mean that they have no husbandlike lovers, who

expect to engross all the pleasures of a house, because they stand to the expenses. For my part, I am very glad

of it: and maintain that a sensible woman of the world ought to refuse all such monopolies. Why take a

master? It is better to support an establishment by retail trade, than to confine one's self to chamber practice

When Laura's tongue was wound up, and it was seldom down, words seemed to cost her nothing. What a

glorious volubility! She told a thousand stories of the actresses belonging to the prince's company; and I

gathered from her whole drift that I could not be better situated to take a scientific view of the cardinal vices.

Unfortunately I was at an age when they inspire but little horror; and this abigail had the art of colouring her

corruptions so lusciously as to hide their deformities and heighten their meretricious lure. She had not time to

open the tenth part of her theatrical budget, for she did not talk more than three hours. The senators and the

When they were gone, my mistress said to me Here, Gil Blas, are ten pistoles to go to market tomorrow.

Five or six of our gentlemen and ladies are to dine here, take care that we are well served. Madam, answered

I, with this sum there shall be a banquet for the whole troop. My friend, replied Arsenia, correct your

phraseology; you must say company, not troop. A troop of robbers, a troop of beggars, a troop of authors; but

a company of comedians, especially when you have to mention the actors of Madrid. I begged my mistress's

pardon for having used so disrespectful a term, and entreated her to excuse my ignorance. I protested that

henceforward, when I spoke collectively of so august a body, I would always say the company.

I TOOK the field the next morning, to open my campaign as steward. It was a fish day; for which reason I

bought some good fat chickens, rabbits, partridges, and every variety of game. As the gentlemen of the sock

and buskin are not on the best possible terms with the church, they are not overscrupulous in their

observance of the rubric. I brought home provisions more than enough for a dozen portly gentlemen to have

fasted on during a whole Lent. The cook had a good morning's work. While she was getting dinner ready,

Arsenia got up and spent the early part of the day at her toilet. At noon came two of the players, Signor

Rosimiro and Signor Ricardo. Afterwards two actresses, Constance and Celinaura; then entered Florimonde,

attended by a man who had all the appearance of a most spruce cavalier. He had his hair dressed in the most

elegant manner, his hat set off with a fashionable plume, very tight breeches, and a shirt with a laced frill. His

gloves and his handkerchief were in the hilt of his sword, and he wore his cloak with a grace altogether

With a prepossessing physiognomy and a good person, there was something extraordinary in the first blush of

him. This gentleman, said I to myself, must be an original. I was not mistaken; his singularities were striking.

On his entrance, he ran with open arms and embraced the company, male and female, one after another. His

grimaces were more extravagant than any I had yet seen in this region of foppery. My prediction was not

falsified by his discourse. He dwelt with fondness on every syllable he uttered, and pronounced his words in

an emphatic tone, with gestures and glances artfully adapted to the subject. I had the curiosity to ask Laura

who this strange figure might be. I forgive you, said she, this instance of an inquisitive disposition. It is

impossible to see and to hear Signor Carlos Alonso de la Ventoleria for the first time, without having such a

natural longing. I will paint him to the life. In the first place, he was originally a player. He left the stage

through caprice, and has since repented in sober sadness of the step. Did you notice his dark hair? Every

thread of it is pencilled, as well as his eyebrows and his whiskers. He was born in the reign of Saturn's father,

in the age before the golden; but as there were no parish registers at that time, he avails himself of the

primitive barbarism, and dates at least twenty centuries below the true epoch. Moreover, his selfsufficiency

keeps pace with his antiquity. He passed the olympiads of his youth in the grossest ignorance; but taking a

fancy to become learned about the Christian era, he engaged a private tutor, who taught him to spell in Greek

and Latin. Nay, more, he knows by heart an infinite number of good stories, which he has given so often as

genuine, that he actually begins to believe them himself. They are eternally pressed into the service, and it

may truly be said that his wit shines at the expense of his memory. He is thought to be a great actor. I am

willing to believe it implicitly, but I must own he is not to my taste. He declaims here sometimes; and I have

observed, among other defects, an affectation in his delivery, with a tremulousness of voice bordering on the

Such was the portrait drawn by my abigail of this honorary spouter; and never was mortal of a more stately

carriage. He prided himself too on being an agreeable companion. He never was at a loss for a commodity of

trite remarks, which he delivered with an air of authority. On the other hand, the Thespian fraternity were not

much addicted to silence. They began canvassing their absent colleagues in a manner little consistent with

charity, it must be owned; but this is a failing pardonable in players as well as in authors. The fire grew brisk

and the satire personal. You have not heard, ladies, said Rosimiro, a new stroke of our dear brother Cesarino.

This very morning he bought silk stockings, ribbons, and laces, and sent them to rehearsal by a little page, as

a present from a countess. What a knavish trick! said Signor de la Ventoleria, with a smile made up of fatuity

and conceit. In my time there was more honesty, we never thought of descending to such impositions. To be

sure, women of fashion were tender of our inventive faculties, nor did they leave such purchases to be made

out of our own pockets; it was their whim. By the honour of our house, said Ricardo, in the same strain, that

whim of theirs is lasting, and if it were allowable to kiss and tell . . . . But one must be secret on these

Gentlemen, interrupted Florimonde, a truce, if you please, with your conquests and successes, they are known

over the whole earth. Apropos of Ismene. It is said that the nobleman who has fooled away so much money

upon her, has at length recovered his senses. Yes, indeed, exclaimed Constance; and I can tell you besides

that she has lost, by the same stroke, a snug little hero of the countinghouse, whose ruin would otherwise

have been signed and sealed. I have the thing from the first hand. Her Mercury made an unfortunate mistake,

for he carried a tender invitation to each, and delivered them wrong. These were great losses, my darling,

quoth Florimonde. Oh! as for that of the lord, replied Constance, it is a very trifling matter. The man of blood

had almost run through his estate, but the little fellow with the pen behind his ear was but just coming into

play. He had never been fleeced before, it is a pity he should have escaped so easily.

Such was the tenor of the conversation before dinner, and it was not much mended in its morality at table. As

I should never have done with the recital of all their ribaldry and nonsense, the reader will excuse the

omission, and pass on to the entrance of a poor devil, yclept an author, who called just before the cloth was

Our little footboy came and said to my mistress in an audible voice Madam, a man in a dirty shirt,

splashed up to his middle, with very much the look of a poet, saving your presence, wants to speak to you.

Let him walk up, answered Arsenia. Keep your seats, gentlemen, it is only an author. To be sure so it was,

one whose tragedy had been accepted, and he was bringing my mistress her part. His name was Pedro de

Moya. On coming into the room he made five or six low bows to the company, who neither rose nor took the

least notice of him. Arsenia just returned his superabundant civilities with a slight inclination of the head. He

came forward with tremor and embarrassment. He dropped his gloves and let his hat fall. He ventured to pick

them up again, then advanced towards my mistress, and presenting to her a paper with more ceremony than a

defendant an affidavit to the judge of the court Madam, said he, have the goodness to receive under your

protection the part I take the liberty of offering you. She stretched out her hand for it with cold and

contemptuous indifference; nor did she condescend even to notice the compliment by a look.

But our author was not disheartened. Seizing this opportunity to distribute the cast, he gave one character to

Rosimiro and another to Florimonde, who treated him just as genteelly as Arsenia had done. On the contrary,

the low comedian, a very pleasant fellow, as those gentlemen for the most part affect to be, insulted him with

the most cutting sarcasms. Pedro de Moya was not made of stone. Yet he dared not take up the aggressor, lest

his piece should suffer for it. He withdrew without saying a word, but stung to the quick, as it seemed to me,

by his reception. He could not fail, in the transports of his anger, mentally to apostrophize the players as they

deserved: and the players, when he was gone, began to talk of authors in return with infinite deference and

kindness. It should seem, said Florimonde, as if Signor de Moya did not go away very well pleased.

Well! madam, cried Rosimiro, and why should you trouble yourself about that? Are we to study the feelings

of authors? If we were to admit them upon equal terms, it would only be the way to spoil them. I know that

contemptible squad; I know them of old: they would soon forget their distance. There is no dealing with them

but as slaves; and as for tiring their patience, never fear that. Though they may take themselves off in a pet

sometimes, the itch of writing brings them back again; and they are raised to the third heaven, if we will but

condescend to support their pieces. You are right, said Arsenia; we never lose an author till we have made his

fortune. When that is done, as soon as we have provided for the ungrateful devils, they get to be in good case,

and then they run restive. Luckily the manager does not break his heart after them, and one is just as good as

These liberal and sagacious remarks met with their full share of approbation. It was carried unanimously that

authors, though treated rather too scurvily be hind the scenes, were on the whole the obliged persons. These

fretters of an hour upon the stage ranked the inhabitant of Parnassus below themselves; and malice could not

THE party sat at table till it was time to go to the theatre. I went after them, and saw the play again that

evening. I took such delight in it, that I was for attending every day. I never missed, and by degrees got

accustomed to the actors. Such is the force of habit. I was particularly delighted with those who were most

The beauties of composition affected me much on the same principle as the excellence of representation.

There were some pieces with which I was enraptured. I liked, among others, those which brought all the

cardinals or the twelve peers of France upon the stage. I got hold of striking passages in these incomparable

performances. I recollect that in two days I learnt by heart a whole play, called, The Queen of Flowers. The

Rose, who was the queen, had the Violet for her maid of honour, and the Jessamin for her prime minister. I

could conceive nothing more elegant or refined: such productions seemed to be the triumph of our Spanish

I was not content to store my memory and discipline my mind with the choicest selections from these

dramatic masterpieces: but I was bent on polishing my taste to the highest perfection. To secure this grand

object, I listened with greedy ears to every word which fell from the lips of the players. If they commended a

piece, I was ravished by it: but suppose they pronounced it bad? why, then I maintained that it was infernal

stuff. I conceived that they must determine the merits of a play, as a jeweller the water of a diamond. And yet

the tragedy by Pedro de Moya was eminently successful, though they had predicted its entire miscarriage.

This, however, was no disparagement of their critical skill in my estimation; and I had rather believe the

audience to be divested of common sense, than doubt the infallibility of the company. But they assured me,

on all hands, that their judgments were usually confirmed by the rule of contraries. It seemed to be a maxim

with them, to set their faces point blank against the taste of the public; and as a proof of this, there were a

thousand cases in point of unexpected successes and failures. All these testimonies were scarcely sufficient to

I shall never forget what happened one day at the first representation of a new comedy. The performers had

pronounced it uninteresting and tedious; they had even prophesied that it would not be heard to the end.

Under this impression, they got through the first act, which was loudly applauded. This was very astonishing!

They played the second act; the audience liked it still better than the first. The actors were confounded. What

the devil, said Rosimiro, this comedy succeeds! At last they went on in the third act, which rose as a third act

ought to rise. I am quite thrown upon my back, said Ricardo; we thought this piece would not be relished; and

all the world are mad after it. Gentlemen, said one of the players archly, it is because we happened

CH. XII. Gil Blas acquires a relish for the theatre, and takes a full swing of its pleasures, but soon becomes disgusted. 103

From this time I held my opinion no longer of the players as competent judges, and began to appreciate their

merit more truly than they had estimated that of the authors. All the lampoons which were current about them

were fully justified. The actors and actresses ran riot on the applauses of the town, and stood so high in their

own conceit, as to think that they conferred a favour by appearing on the boards. I was shocked at their public

misconduct; but unfortunately reconciled myself too easily to their private manners, and plunged into

debauchery. How could I do otherwise? Every word they uttered was poison in the ears of youth, and every

scene that was presented, an alluring picture of corruption. Had I been a stranger to what passed with Casilda,

with Constance, and with the other actresses, Arsenia's house alone would have been sufficient for my ruin.

Besides the old noblemen of whom I have spoken, there came thither young debauchees of fashion, who

forestalled their inheritances by the disinterested mediation of moneylenders: and sometimes we had

officers under government, who were so far from receiving fees, as at their public boards, that they paid most

Florimonde, who lived at next door, dined and supped with Arsenia every day. Their long intimacy surprised

every one. Coquets were not thought usually to maintain so good an understanding with each other. It was

concluded that they would quarrel, sooner or late; about some paramour; but such reasoners could not see

into the hearts of these exemplary friends. They were united in the bonds of indissoluble love. Instead of

harbouring jealousy, like other women, they had everything in common. They had rather divide the plunder

of mankind, than childishly fall out, and contend for trumpery, as hearts and affections.

Laura, after the example of these two illustrious partners, turned the fresh season of youth to the best

advantage. She had told me that I should see strange doings. And yet I did not take up the jealous part. I had

promised to adopt the principles of the company on that score. For some days I kept my thoughts to myself. I

only just took the liberty of asking her the names of the men whom she favoured with her private ear. She

always told me that they were uncles or cousins. From what a prolific family was she sprung! King Priam had

no luck in propagation, compared with her ancestors. Nor did this precious abigail confine herself to her

uncles and cousins: she went now and then to lay a trap for unwary aliens, and personate the widow of quality

under the auspices of the discreet old dowager above mentioned. In short Laura, to hit off her character

exactly, was just as young, just as pretty, and just as loose as her mistress, who had no other advantage over

I was borne down by the torrent for three weeks, and ran the career of dissipation in my turn. But I must at

the same time say for myself, that in the midst of pleasure I frequently felt the still small voice of conscience,

arising from the impression of a serious education, which mixed gall in the Circean cup. Riot could not

altogether get the better of remorse: on the contrary, the pangs of the last grew keener with the more shameful

indulgence of the first; and, by a happy effect of my temperament, the disorders of a theatrical life began to

make me shudder. Ah! wretch, said I to myself, is it thus that you make good the hopes of your family? Is it

not enough to have thwarted their pious intentions, by not following your destined course of life as an

instructor of youth? Need your condition of a servant hinder you from living decently and soberly? Are such

monsters of iniquity fit companions for you? Envy, hatred, and avarice are predominant here; intemperance

and idleness have purchased the feesimple there: the pride of some is aggravated into the most barefaced

impudence, and modesty is turned out of doors, by the common consent of all. The business is settled: I will

A SURVIVING spark of honour and of religion, in the midst of so general depravity, made me resolve not

only to leave Arsenia, but even to abjure all commerce with Laura, whom yet I could not cease to love,

though I was well aware of her daily inconstancy. Happy the man who can thus profit by those appeals,

which occasionally interrupt the headlong course of his pleasures! One fine morning, I made up my bundle;

and, without reckoning with Arsenia, who indeed owed me next to nothing, without taking leave of my dear

Laura, I burst from that mansion, which smelt of brimstone and fire reserved for the wicked. I had no sooner

taken so virtuous a step, than providence interfered in my behalf. I met the steward of my late master, Don

Matthias, and greeted him: he knew me again at once, and stopped to inquire where I lived. I answered that I

had just left my place; that after staying near a month with Arsenia, whose manners did not at all suit me, I

was come away by a sudden impulse of virtue, to save my innocence. The steward, just as if he had been

himself of a religious cast, commended my scruples, and offered me a place much to my advantage, since I

was so chaste and honest a youth. He kept his word, and introduced me on that very day into the family of

I could not have got into a better service; nor did I repent in the sequel of having accepted the situation. Don

Vincent was a very rich old nobleman, who had lived many years unincumbered with lawsuits or with a wife.

The physicians had removed the last plague out of the way, in their attempts to rid her of a cough, which

might have lasted a great while longer, if the remedies had not been more fatal than the disease. Far from

thinking of the holy state a second time, he gave himself up entirely to the education of his only daughter

Aurora, who was then entering her twentysixth year, and might pass for an accomplished person. With

beauty above the common, she had an excellent and highly cultivated understanding. Her father was a poor

creature as to intellect; but he possessed the happy talent of looking well after his affairs. One fault he had, of

a kind excusable in old men: he was an incessant talker, especially about war and fighting. If that string was

unfortunately touched in his presence, in a moment he blew his heroic trumpet, and his hearers might think

themselves lucky if they compounded for a gazette extraordinary of two sieges and three battles. As he had

spent twothirds of his life in the service, his memory was an inexhaustible depot of various facts; but the

patience of the listeners did not always keep pace with the perseverance of the relater. The stories,

sufficiently prolix in themselves, were still further spun out by stuttering; so that the manner was still less

happy than the matter. In all other respects, I never met with a nobleman of a more amiable character: his

temper was even; he was neither obstinate nor capricious; the general alternative of men in the higher ranks

of life. Though a good economist, he lived like a gentleman. His establishment was composed of several men

servants, and three women in waiting on Aurora. I soon discovered that the steward of Don Matthias had

procured me a good post, and my only anxiety was to establish myself firmly in it. I took all possible pains to

feel the ground under my feet, and to study the characters of the whole household: then regulating my

conduct by my discoveries, I was not long in ingratiating myself with my master and all the servants.

I had been with Don Vincent above a month, when it struck me that his daughter was very particular in her

notice of me above all the servants in the family. Whenever her eyes happened accidentally to meet mine,

they seemed to be suffused with a certain partial complacency, which did not enter into her silent

communications with the vulgar. Had it not been for my haunts among the coxcombs of the theatrical tribe

and their hangerson, it would never have entered into my head that Aurora should throw away a thought on

me: but my brain had been a little turned among those gentry, from whose libertine suspicions ladies of the

noblest birth are not always held sacred. If, said I, those chronicles of the age are to be believed, fancy and

high blood lead women of quality a dance, in which they sometimes join hands with unequal partners: how

do I know but my young mistress may caper to a tune of my piping? But no: it cannot be so, neither. This is

not one of your Messalinas, who, derogating from the loftiness of ancestry, unworthily let down their regards

to the dust, and sully their pure honour without a blush: but rather one of those virtuously apprehensive, yet

tenderhearted girls, who encircle their softness within the in surmountable pale of delicacy; yet think it no

tampering with chastity, to inspire and cherish a sentimental flame, interesting to the heart without being

Such were my ideas of my mistress, without knowing exactly whether they were right or wrong. And yet

when we met, she was continually caught with a smile of satisfaction on her countenance. Without passing

for a fop, a man might give in to such flattering appearances; and a philosophical apathy was not to be

expected from me. I conceived Aurora to have been deeply smitten with my irresistible attractions; and

looked on myself henceforth in the light of a favoured attendant, whose servitude was to be sweetened by the

balmy infusion of love. To appear in some measure less unworthy of the blessings, which propitious fortune

had kept in store for me, I began to take better care of my person than I had done heretofore. I laid out my

slender stock of money in linen, pomatums, and essences. The first thing in the morning was to prank up and

perfume myself, so as not to be in an undress in case of being sent for into the presence of my mistress. With

these attentions to personal elegance and other dexterous strokes in the art of pleasing, I flattered myself that

Among Aurora's women there was one who went by the name of Ortiz. This was an old dowager, who had

been a fixture in Don Vincent's family for more than twenty years. She had been about his daughter from her

childhood, and still held the office of duenna; but she no longer performed the invidious part of the duty. On

the contrary, instead of blazoning, as formerly, Aurora's little indiscretions, her skill was now employed in

throwing them into shade. One evening, Dame Ortiz, having watched her opportunity of speaking to me with.

out observation, said in a low voice, that if I was close and trustworthy, I had only to be in the garden at

midnight, when a scene would be laid open in which I should not be sorry to be an actor. I answered the

duenna, pressing her hand significantly, that I would not fail, and we parted in a hurry for fear of a surprise.

How the hours lagged from this moment till suppertime, though we supped very early! Then again, from

supper to my master's bedtime! It should seem as if the march of the whole family was timed to a largo

movement. By way of helping forward the fidgets, when Don Vincent withdrew to his chamber, the army

was put on the war establishment, and we were obliged to fight the campaigns in Portugal over again, though

my ears had not recovered from the din of the last cannonade. But a favour, from which I had hitherto made

my escape, was reserved for this eventful evening. He repeated the army list from beginning to end, with

copious digressions on the exploits of those officers who had distinguished themselves in his time. Oh my

poor tympanum! It was almost cracked before we got to the end. Time, however, will wear out even an old

man's story, and he went to bed. I immediately went to my own little chamber, whence there was a way into

the garden by a private staircase. I depended on my purchase of perfumery for overcoming the effluvia of the

day's drudgery, and put on a clean shirt highly scented. When every invention had been pressed into the

service to render my person worthy of its destiny, and cherish the fondness of my mistress, I went to the

Ortiz was not there. I concluded that, tired of waiting for me, she had gone back to her chamber, and that the

happy moment of philandering was over. I laid all the blame on Don Vincent; but just as I was singing Te

Deum backwards for his campaigns, I heard the clock strike ten. To be sure it must be wrong! It could not be

less than one o'clock. Yet I was so egregiously out in my reckoning, that full a quarter of an hour afterwards,

I counted ten upon my fingers by the clock at next door. Vastly well, thought I to myself; I have only two

complete hours to ventilate my passion here alfresco. At least they shall not complain of me for want of

punctuality. What shall I do with myself till twelve? Suppose we take a turn about this garden and settle our

cues in the delicious drama just going to be brought on the stage; it is my first appearance in so principal a

character. I am not yet sufficiently well read in the crotchets of your quality dames. I know how to tickle a

girl in a stuff gown, or an actress: You swagger up to them with an easy, impudent assurance, and pop the

question without making any bones of it. But one must take a female of condition on a very different tack. It

seems to me, that in this case the happy swain must be well bred, attentive, tender, respectful, without

degenerating into bashfulness. Instead of taking his happiness by storm, he must plant his amorous desires in

Thus it was that I argued, and such were the preconcerted plans of my campaign with Aurora. After a few

tedious minutes, according to my calculation, I was to experience the ecstasy of finding myself at the feet of

that lovely creature, and pouring forth a torrent of impassioned nonsense. I scraped together in my memory

all the claptraps in our stockplays, which were most successful with the audience, and might best set off

my pretensions to spirit and gallantry. I trusted to my own adroitness for the application, and hoped, after the

example of some players in the list of my acquaintance, bringing only a stock of memory into the trade, to

deal upon credit for my wit. While my imagination was engrossed by these thoughts, which kept my

impatience at bay much more successfully than the commentaries of my modern Caesar, I heard the clock

strike .eleven. This was some encouragement, and I fell back to my meditations, sometimes sauntering

carelessly about, and sometimes throwing myself at my length on the turf, in a bower at the bottom of the

garden. At length it struck twelve, the longexpected hour, big with my high destiny. Some seconds after,

Ortiz, as punctual as myself though less impatient, made her appearance. Signor Gil Blas, said she, accosting

me, how long have you been here? Two hours, answered I. Indeed! Truly, replied she, laughing, you are very

exact; there is a pleasure in making nocturnal assignations with you. Yet you may assure yourself; continued

she more gravely, that you cannot pay too dear for such good fortune as that of which I am the messenger.

My mistress wants to have some private talk with you. I shall not anticipate what may be the subject, that is a

secret which you must learn from no lips but her own. Follow me; I will show you into her chamber. With

these words the duenna took me by the hand, and led me mysteriously into her lady's apartment through a

I FOUND Aurora in an undress. I saluted her in the most respectful manner, and threw as much elegance into

my attitude as I had to throw. She received me with the most winning affability, made me sit down by her

against all my remonstrances, and told her ambassadress to go into another room. After this opening, which

seemed highly encouraging to my cause, she entered upon the business. Gil Blas, said she, you must have

perceived how favourably I have regarded and distinguished you from all the rest of my father's servants; and

though my looks had not betrayed my partial dispositions towards you, my proceeding of this night would

I did not give her time to say a word more. It struck me, that as a man of feeling, I ought to spare her

trembling diffidence the cruel necessity of explaining her sentiments in more direct terms. I rose from my

chair in a transport, and, throwing myself at Aurora's feet, like a tragedy hero of the Grecian stage when he

supplicates the heroine "by her knees," exclaimed in a declamatory tone Ah! Madam, could it be possible

that Gil Blas, hitherto the whirligig of fortune and football of embattled nature, should have called down

upon his head the exquisite felicity of inspiring sentiments Do not speak so loud, interrupted my mistress

with a laugh of mingled apprehension and ridicule, you will wake my women who sleep in the adjoining

chamber. Get up, take your seat, and hear me out without putting in a word. Yes, Gil Blas, pursued she,

resuming her gravity, you have my best wishes; and to shew you how deep you are in my good graces, I will

confide to you a secret on which depends the repose of my life. I am in love with a young gentleman,

possessing every charm of person and face, and noble by birth. His name is Don Lewis Pacheco. I have seen

him occasionally in the public walks and at the theatre, but I have never conversed with him. I do not even

know what his private character may be, or what bad qualities he may have. It is on this subject that I wish to

be informed. I stand in need of a person to inquire diligently into his morals, and give me a true and particular

account. I make choice of you. Surely I run no risk in entrusting you with this commission. I hope that you

will acquit yourself with dexterity and prudence, and that I shall never repent of giving you my confidence.

My mistress concluded thus, and waited for my answer to her proposal. I had been disconcerted in the first

instance at so disagreeable a mistake; but I soon recovered my scattered senses, and surmounting the

confusion which rashness always occasions when it is unlucky, I exposed to sale such a cargo of zeal. For the

lady's interests, I devoted myself with so martyrlike an enthusiasm to her service, that if she did not

absolutely forget my silly vanity in the thought of having pleased her, at least she had reason to believe that I

knew how to make amends for a piece of folly. I asked only two days to bring her a satisfactory account of

Don Lewis. After which Dame Ortiz, answering the bell, shewed me the way back into the garden, and said,

on taking leave, Goodnight, Gil Blas. I need not caution you to be in time at the next appointment. I have

I returned to my chamber, not without some little mortification at finding my voluptuous anticipations all

divested of even their ideal sweetness. I was nevertheless sufficiently in my senses to reflect soberly that it

was more in my element to be the trusty scout of my mistress than her lover. I even thought that this

adventure might lead to something further; that the middle men in the trade of love usually pocket a tolerable

percentage; and went to bed with the resolution of doing whatever Aurora required of me. For this purpose I

went abroad the next morning. The residence of so distinguished a personage as Don Lewis was not difficult

to find out. I made my enquiries about him in the neighbourhood, but the people who came in my way could

not satisfy my curiosity to the full, so that it was necessary to resume my search diligently on the following

day. I was in better luck. I met a lad of my acquaintance by chance in the street, we stopped for a little gossip.

There passed by in the very nick one of his friends, who came up and told him that he was just turned away

from the family of Don Joseph Pacheco, Don Lewis's father, about a paltry remnant of wine, which he had

been accused of drinking. I would not lose so fair an occasion of learning all I wanted to know, and plied my

questions so successfully as to go home with much selfcomplacency, at my punctual performance of my

engagements with my mistress. It was on the coming night that I was to see her again at the same hour and in

the same manner as the first time. I was not in such a confounded hurry this evening. Far from writhing with

impatience under the prolixity of my old commander, I led him on to the charge. I waited for midnight with

the greatest indifference in the world, and it was not till all the clocks within earshot had struck that I crept

down into the garden, without any nonsense of pomatum and perfumery. That foppery was completely cured.

At the place of meeting I found the very faithful duenna, who sneeringly reproached me with a defalcation in

my zeal. I made her no answer, but suffered myself to be conducted into Aurora's chamber. She asked me, as

soon as I made my appearance, whether I had gained any intelligence of Don Lewis. Yes, madam, said I, and

you shall have the sum total in two words. I must first tell you, that he will soon set out for Salamanca, to

finish his studies. The young gentleman is brim full of honour and probity. As for valour, he cannot be

deficient there, since he is a man of birth and a Castilian. Besides this, he has an infinite deal of wit, and is

very agreeable in his manners; but there is one thing which can scarcely be to your liking. He is pretty much

in the fashion of our young nobility here at court exemplarily catholic in his devotions to the fair. Have

you not heard that at his age he has already been tenant at will to two actresses? What is it you tell me?

replied Aurora. What shocking conduct! But do you know for certain, Gil Blas, that he leads so dissolute a

life? Oh! there is no doubt of it, madam, rejoined I. A servant, turned off this morning, told me so, and

servants are very plain dealers when the failings of their masters are the topic. Besides, he keeps company

with Don Alexo Segiar, Don Antonio Centell�s, and Don Fernando de Gamboa; that single circumstance

proves his libertinism with all the force of demonstration. It is enough, Gil Blas, said my mistress with a sigh;

on your report I am determined to struggle with my unworthy passion. Though it has already struck deep root

in my heart, I do not despair of tearing it forcibly from its bed. Go, added she, putting into my hands a small

purse, none of the lightest, take this for your pains. Beware of betraying my secret. Consider it as entrusted to

I assured my mistress that she might be perfectly easy on that score, for I was the Harpocrates of confidential

servants. After this compliment to myself, I withdrew with no small eagerness to investigate the contents of

the purse. There were twenty pistoles. It struck me all at once that Aurora would surely have given me more

had I been the bearer of pleasant tidings, since she paid so handsomely for a blank in the lottery. I was sorry

not to have adopted the policy of the pleaders in the courts, who sometimes paint the cheek of truth when her

natural complexion is inclined to be cadaverous. It was a pity to have stifled an amour in the birth which

might in its growth have been so profitable. Yet I had the comfort of finding myself reimbursed the expense

IT happened soon after this adventure that Signor Don Vincent fell sick. Independent of his very advanced

age, the symptoms of his disorder appeared in so formidable a shape that a fatal termination was but too

probable. From the beginning of his illness he was attended by two of the most eminent physicians in Madrid.

One was Doctor Andros, and the other Doctor Oquetos. They considered the case with due solemnity; and

both agreed, after a strict investigation, that the humours were in a state of mutiny, but this was the only thing

about which they did agree. The proper practice, said Andros, is to purge the humours, though raw, with all

possible expedition, while they are in a violent agitation of flux and reflux, for fear of their fixing upon some

noble part. Oquetos maintained, on the contrary, that we must wait till the humours were ripened before it

would be safe to go upon purgatives. But your method, replied the first speaker, is directly in the teeth of the

rules laid down by the prince of medicine. Hippocrates recommends purging in the most burning fever from

the very first attack, and says in plain terms that no time is to be lost in purging when the humours are in

???as�?? {orgasmos}, that is to say, in a state of fermentation. Ay! there is your mistake, replied Oquetos.

Hippocrates by the word ???as�?? {orgasmos} does not mean the fermentation, he means rather the

Thereupon our doctors got heated. One quotes the Greek text, and cites all the authors who have explained it

in his sense; the other, trusting to a Latin translation, takes up the controversy in a still more positive tone.

Which of the two to believe? Don Vincent was not the man to decide that question. In the mean time, finding

himself obliged to choose, he gave his confidence to the party who had dispatched the greatest number of

patients I mean the elder of the two. Andros, the younger, immediately withdrew, not without flinging out

a few satirical taunts at his senior on the ???as�?? {orgasmos}. Here then was Oquetos triumphant. As he was

a professor of the Sangrado school, he began by bleeding copiously, waiting till the humours were ripened

before he went upon purgatives. But death, fearing, no doubt, lest this reserve of purgatives should turn the

fortunes of the day, got the start of the concoction, and secured his victory over my master by a

coupdemain. Such was the final close of Signor Don Vincent, who had lost his life because his physician

Aurora having buried her father with a pomp suited to the dignity of his birth, administered to his effects.

Having the whole arrangement of everything in her own breast, she discharged some of the servants with

rewards proportioned to their services, and soon retired to her castle on the Tagus, between Sacedon and

Buendia. I was among the number of those whom she kept, and who made part of her country establishment.

I had even the good fortune to become a principal agent in the plot. In spite of my faithful report on the

subject of Don Lewis, she still harboured a partiality for that bewitching young fellow; or rather, for want of

spirit to combat her passion in the first instance, she surrendered at discretion. There was no longer any need

of taking precautions to speak with me in private. Gil Blas, said she with a sigh, I can never forget Don

Lewis. Let me make what effort I will to banish him from my thoughts, he is present to them without

intermission, not as you have described him, plunged in every variety of licentious riot, but just what my

fancy would paint him tender, loving, constant. She betrayed considerable emotion in uttering these

words, and could not help shedding tears. My fountains were very near playing from mere sympathy. There

was no better way of paying my court than by appearing sensibly touched at her distress. My friend,

continued she, after having wiped her lovely eyes, your nature is evidently cast in a benevolent mould; and I

am so well satisfied with your zeal that it shall not go unrewarded. Your assistance, my dear Gil Blas, is more

necessary to me than ever. You must be made acquainted with a plan which engrosses all my thoughts,

though it will appear strangely eccentric. You are to know that I mean to set out for Salamanca as soon as

possible. There my design is to assume the disguise of a fashionable young fellow, and to make acquaintance

with Pacheco under the name of Don Felix. I shall endeavour to gain his confidence and friendship, and lead

the conversation incidentally to the subject of Aurora de Guzman, for whose cousin I shall pass. He may

perhaps express a wish to see her, and there is the point on which I expect the interest to turn. We will have

two apartments in Salamanca. In one I shall be Don Felix, in the other, Aurora; and I flatter myself that by

presenting my person before Don Lewis, sometimes under the semblance of a man, sometimes in all the

natural and artificial attractions of my own sex, I may bring him by little and little to the proposed end of my

stratagem. I am perfectly aware that my project is extravagant in the highest degree, but my passion drives

me headlong; and the innocence of my intentions renders me insensible to all compunctious feelings of virgin

I was exactly in the same mind with Aurora respecting the extravagance of her scheme. Yet, unseasonable as

it might seem to reflecting persons like myself, there was no occasion for me to play the schoolmaster. On the

contrary, I began to practise all the arts of a thoroughbred special pleader, and undertook to magnify this

hairbrained pursuit into a piece of incomparable wit and spirit, without the least tincture of imprudence.

This was highly gratifying to my mistress. Lovers like to have their rampant fancies tickled. We no longer

considered this rash enterprise in any other light than as a play, of which the characters were to be properly

cast, and the business dramatically arranged. The actors were chosen out of our own domestic establishment,

and the parts distributed without secret jealousy or open rupture, but then we were not players by profession.

It was determined that Dame Ortiz should personate Aurora's aunt, under the name of Donna Kimena de

Guzman, with a valet and waitingmaid by way of attendance; and that Aurora, with the swashing outside of

a gay spark, was to take me for her valetdechambre, with one of her women disguised as a page, to be

more immediately about her person. The drama thus filled up we returned to Madrid, where we understood

Don Lewis still to be, though it was not likely to be long till his departure for Salamanca. We got up with all

possible haste the dresses and decorations of our wild comedy. When they were in complete order, my

mistress had them packed up carefully, that they might come out in all their gloss and newness on the rising

of the curtain. Then, leaving the care of her family to her steward, she began her journey in a coach drawn by

four mules, and travelled towards the kingdom of Leon, with those of her household who had some part to

We had already crossed Old Castile, when the axletree of the coach gave way. The accident happened

between Avila and Villaflor, at the distance of three or four hundred yards from a castle near the foot of a

mountain. Night was coming on, and the measure of our troubles seemed to be heaped up and overflowing.

But there passed accidentally by us a countryman, by whose assistance we were relieved from our

difficulties. He acquainted us that the castle yonder belonged to Donna Elvira, widow of Don Pedro de

Penar�s; at the same time giving us so favourable a character of that lady, that my mistress sent me to the

castle with a request of a night's lodging. Elvira did not disgrace the good word of the countryman. She

received me with an air of hospitality, and returned such an answer to my compliment as I wished to carry

back. We all went to the castle, whither the mules dragged the carriage with considerable difficulty. At the

gate we met the widow of Don Pedro, who came out to meet my mistress. I shall pass over in silence the

reciprocal civilities which were exchanged on this occasion, in compliance with the usage of the polite world.

I shall only say that Elvira was a lady rather advanced in years, but remarkably well bred, with an address

superior to that of most women in doing the honours of her house. She led Aurora into a sumptuous

apartment, where, leaving her to rest herself for a short time, she looked after everything herself, and left

nothing undone which could in the least contribute to our comfort. Afterwards, when supper was ready, she

ordered it to be served up in Aurora's chamber, where they sat down to table together. Don Pedro's widow

was not of a description to cast a slur on her own hospitalities, by assuming an air of abstraction or

sullenness. Her temper was gay, and her conversation lively without levity; for her ideas were dignified, and

her expressions select. Nothing could exceed her wit, accompanied by a peculiarly fine turn of thought.

Aurora appeared as much to be delighted as myself. They became sworn friends, and mutually engaged in a

regular correspondence. As our carriage could not be repaired till the following day, and we should have

encountered some perils by setting out late at night, it was determined that we should take up our abode at the

castle till the damage was made good. All the arrangements were in the first style of elegance, and our

lodgings were correspondent to the magnificence of the establishment in other respects.

The day after, my mistress discovered new charms in Elvira's conversation. They dined in a large hall, where

there were several pictures. One among the rest was distinguished for its admirable execution, but the subject

was highly tragic. A principal figure was a man of superior mien, lying lifeless on his back, and bathed in his

own blood; yet in the very embraces of death he wore a menacing aspect. At a little distance from him you

might see a young lady in a different posture, though stretched likewise on the ground. She had a sword

plunged in her bosom, and was giving up her last sighs, at the same time casting her dying glances at a young

man who seemed to suffer a mortal pang at losing her. The painter had besides charged his picture with a

figure which did not escape my notice. It was an old man of a venerable physiognomy, sensibly touched with

the objects which struck his sight, and equally alive with the young man to the impressions of the melancholy

scene. It might be said that these images of blood and desolation affected both the spectators with the same

astonishment and grief, but that the outward demonstrations of their in ward sentiments were different. The

old man, sunk in a profound melancholy, looked as if he was bowed down to the ground; while the youth

mingled some thing like the extravagance of despair with the tears of affliction. All these circumstances were

depicted with touches so characteristic and affecting, that we could not take our eyes off the performance. My

mistress desired to know the subject of the piece. Madam, said Elvira, it is a faithful delineation of the

misfortunes sustained by my family. This answer excited Aurora's curiosity; and she testified so strong a

desire to learn the particulars, that the widow of Don Pedro could do no otherwise than promise her the

satisfaction she desired. This promise, made before Ortiz, her two fellowservants, and myself, rooted us to

the spot on which we were listening to their former conversation. My mistress would have sent us away; but

Elvira, who saw plainly that we were dying with eagerness to be present at the explanation of the picture, had

the goodness to desire us to stay, alleging at the same time that the story she had to relate was not of a nature

to enjoin secrecy. After a moment's recollection, she began her recital to the following effect:

ROGER, king of Sicily, had a brother and a sister. His brother, by name Mainfroi, rebelled against him, and

kindled a war in the kingdom, bloody in its immediate effects, and portentous in its future consequences. But

it was his fate to lose two battles, and to fall into the king's hands. The punishment of his revolt extended no

further than the loss of liberty. This act of clemency served only to make Roger pass for a barbarian in the

estimation of the disaffected party among his subjects. They contended that he had saved his brother's life

only to wreak his vengeance on him by tortures the more merciless because protracted. People in general, on

better grounds, transferred the blame of Mainfroi's harsh treatment while in prison to his sister Matilda. That

princess had, in fact, cherished a longrooted hatred against this prince, and was indefatigable in her

persecutions during his whole life. She died in a very short time after him, and her premature fate was

considered as the retribution of a just providence for her disregard of those sentiments implanted by nature

Mainfroi left behind him two sons. They were yet in their childhood. Roger had a kind of lurking desire to get

rid of them, under the apprehension lest, when arrived at a more advanced age, the wish of avenging their

father might hurry them to the revival of a faction which was not so entirely overthrown as to be incapable of

originating new intrigues in the state. He communicated his purpose to the senator Leontio Siffredi, his

minister, who diverted him from his bloody thoughts by undertaking the education of Prince Enriquez, the

eldest, and recommending the care of the younger, by name Don Pedro, to the constable of Sicily, as a trusty

counsellor and loyal servant. Roger, assured that his nephews would be trained up by these two men in

principles of due submission to the royal authority, gave up the reins of guardianship to their control, and

himself took charge of his niece Constance. She was of the same age with Enriquez, and only daughter of the

princess Matilda. He allowed her an establishment of female attendants, and of masters in every branch of the

politer studies, so that nothing was wanting either to her instruction or her state.

Leontio Siffredi had a castle at the distance of less than two leagues from Palermo, in a spot named

Belmonte. There it was that this minister exerted all his talents and diligence, to render Enriquez worthy of

one day ascending the throne of Sicily. From the first, he discovered dispositions so amiable in that prince,

that his attachment became as strong as if he had no child of his own. He had, however, two daughters

Blanche, the firstborn, one year younger than the prince, was armed at all points with the weapons of a most

perfect beauty. Her sister Portia was still in her cradle. The mother had died in childbed of this youngest.

Blanche and Prince Enriquez conceived a reciprocal affection as soon as they were alive to the influence of

love: but they were not allowed to improve their acquaintance into familiar intercourse. The prince

nevertheless found the means of occasionally eluding the prudential vigilance of his guardian. He knew

sufficiently well how to avail himself of those precious moments, and prevailed so far with Siffredi's

daughter, as to gain her consent to the execution of a project which he meditated. It happened precisely at this

time that Leontio was obliged by the king's order to take a journey into one of the most remote provinces in

the island. During his absence Enriquez got an opening made in the wall of his apartment, which led into

Blanche's chamber. This opening was concealed by a sliding shutter, so exactly corresponding with the

wainscot, and so closely fitting in with the ceiling and the floor, that the most suspicious eye could not have

detected the contrivance. A skilful workman, whom the prince had gained over to his interests, helped him to

The enamoured Enriquez having obtained this inlet into his mistress's chamber, sometimes availed himself of

his privilege; but he never took advantage of her partiality. Imprudent as it may well be thought, to admit of a

secret entrance into her apartment, it was only on the express and reiterated assurance that none but the most

innocent favours should be requested at her hands. One night he found her in a state of unusual perturbation.

She had been informed that Roger was drawing near his end, and had sent for Siffredi as lord high chancellor

of the kingdom, and the legal depository of his last will and testament. Already did she figure to herself her

dear Enriquez elevated to royal honours. She was afraid of losing her lover in her sovereign, and that fear had

strangely affected her spirits. The tears were standing in her eyes, when the unconscious cause of them

appeared before her. You weep, madam, said he, what am I to think of this overwhelming grief? My lord,

answered Blanche, it were vain for me to hide my apprehensions. The king your uncle is at the point of death,

and you will soon be called to supply his place. When I measure the distance placed between us by your

approaching greatness, I will own to you that my mind misgives me. The monarch and the lover estimate

objects through a far different medium. What constituted the fondest wish of the individual, while his

aspiring thoughts were checked by the control of a superior, fades into insignificance before the tumultuous

cares or brilliant destinies of royalty. Be it the misgiving of an anxious heart, or the whisper of a

wellfounded opinion, I feel distracting emotions succeed one another in my breast, which not all my just

confidence in your goodness can allay. The source of my mistrust is not in the suspected steadiness of your

attachment, but in a diffidence of my own happy fate. Lovely and beloved Blanche, replied the prince, your

fears but bind me the more firmly in your fetters, and warrant my devotion to your charms. Yet this excessive

indulgence of a fond jealousy borders on disloyalty to love, and, if I may venture to say so, trenches on the

esteem to which my constancy has hitherto entitled me. No, no, never entertain a doubt that my destiny can

ever be sundered from yours, but rather indulge the pleasing anticipation, that you, and you alone, will be the

arbitress of my fate, and the source of all my bliss. Away, then, with these vain alarms. Why must they

disturb an intercourse so charming? Ah! my lord, rejoined the daughter of Leontio, your subjects, when they

place the crown upon your head, may ask of you a princessqueen, descended from a long line of kings,

whose glittering alliance shall join new realms to your hereditary estates. Perhaps, alas! you will meet their

ambitious aims, even at the expense of your softest vows. Nay, why, resumed Enriquez, with rising passion,

why too ready a selftormentor, do you raise so afflicting a phantom of futurity? Should heaven take the king

my uncle to itself, and place Sicily under my dominion, I swear to unite myself with you at Palermo, in

presence of my whole court. To this I call to witness all which is held sacred and inviolable among men.

The protestations of Enriquez removed the fears of Siffredi's daughter. The rest of their discourse turned on

the king's illness. Enriquez displayed the goodness of his natural disposition, for he pitied his uncle's lot,

though he had no reason to be greatly affected by it; but the force of blood extorted from him sentiments of

regret for a prince whose death held out an immediate prospect of the crown. Blanche did not yet know all the

misfortunes which hung over her. The constable of Sicily, who had met her coming out of her father's

apartment, one day when he was at the castle of Belmonte on some business of importance, was struck with

admiration. The very next day, he made proposals to Siffredi, who entertained his offer favourably; but the

illness of Roger taking place unexpectedly about that time, the marriage was put off for the present, and the

One morning, as Enriquez had just finished dressing, he was surprised to see Leontio enter his apartment,

followed by Blanche. Sir, said this minister, the news I have to announce will in some degree afflict your

excellent heart, but it is counteracted by consoling circumstances which ought to moderate your grief. The

king your uncle has departed this life; and by his death left you the heir of his sceptre. Sicily is at your feet.

The nobility of the kingdom wait your orders at Palermo. They have commissioned me to receive them in

person, and I come, my liege, with my daughter to pay you the earliest and sincerest homage of your new

subjects. The prince, who was well aware that Roger had been for two months sinking under a complaint

gradual in its progress but fatal in its nature, was not astonished at this news. And yet, struck with his sudden

exaltation, he felt a thousand confused motions rising up by turns in his heart. He mused for some time, then

breaking silence, addressed these words to Leontio Wise Siffredi, I have always considered you as my

father. I shall make it my glory to be governed by your counsels, and you shall reign in Sicily with a sway

paramount to my own. With these words, advancing to the standish and taking a blank sheet of paper, he

wrote his name at the bottom. What are you doing, sir? said Siffredi. Proving my gratitude and my esteem,

answered Enriquez. Then the prince presented the paper to Blanche, and said Accept, madam, this pledge

of my faith, and of the empire with which I invest you over my thoughts and actions. Blanche received it with

a blush, and made this answer to the prince I acknowledge with all humility the condescensions of my

sovereign, but my destiny is in the hands of a father, and you must not consider me as ungrateful if I deposit

this flattering token in his custody, to be used according to the dictates of his sage discretion.

In compliance with these sentiments of filial duty, she gave the sign manual of Enriquez to her father. Then

Siffredi saw at once what till that moment had eluded his penetration. He entered dearly into the prince's

sentiments, and said: Your majesty shall have no reproaches to make me. I shall not act unworthily of the

confidence . . . . My dear Leontio, interrupted Enriquez, you and unworthiness never can be allied. Make

what use you please of my signature. I shall confirm your determination. But go, return to Palermo, prescribe

the ceremonies for my coronation there, and tell my subjects that I shall follow you in person immediately, to

receive their oaths of allegiance, and assure them of my protection in return. The minister obeyed the

Some hours after their departure, the prince also left Belmonte, with his thoughts more intent on his passion

than on the high rank to which he was called. Immediately on his arrival in the city, the air was rent with a

thousand cries of joy. He made his entry into the palace amid the acclamations of the people, and everything

was ready for the august formalities. The Princess Constance was waiting to receive him, in a magnificent

mourning dress. She appeared deeply affected by Roger's death. The customs of society required from them a

reciprocal compliment of condolence on the late event; and they each of them acquitted themselves with good

breeding and propriety. But there was somewhat more coldness on the part of Enriquez than on that of

Constance, who could not enter into family quarrels, and resolved on hating the young prince. He placed

himself on the throne, and the princess sate beside him, in a chair of state a little less elevated. The great

officers of the realm fell into their places, each according to his rank. The ceremony began; and Leontio, as

lord high chancellor of the kingdom, holding in his possession the will of the late king, opened it, and read

the contents aloud. This instrument contained in substance that Roger, in default of issue, nominated the

eldest son of Mainfroi his successor, on condition of his marrying the Princess Constance; and in the event of

his refusing her hand, the crown of Sicily was to devolve, to his exclusion, on the head of the infant Don

These words were a thunderstroke to Enriquez. His senses were all bewildered even to distraction; and his

agonies became still more acute, when Leontio, having finished the reading of the will, addressed the

assembly at large to the following effect: My lords, the last injunctions of the late king having been made

known to our new monarch, that pious and excellent prince consents to honour his cousin the Princess

Constance with his hand. At these words Enriquez interrupted the chancellor. Leontio, said he, remember the

writing; Blanche. . . . Sire, interrupted Siffredi in his turn with precipitation, lest the prince should find an

opportunity of making himself understood, here it is. The nobility of the kingdom, added he, exhibiting the

blank paper to the assembly, will see by your majesty's august subscription, the esteem in which you hold the

princess, and your implicit deference to the last will of the late king your uncle.

Having finished these words, he forthwith began reading the instrument in such terms as he had himself

inserted. According to the contents, the new king gave a promise to his people, with formalities the most

binding and authentic, that he would marry Constance, in conformity with the intention of Roger. The hall

reechoed with pealing shouts of satisfaction. Long live our high and mighty King Enriquez! exclaimed all

those who were present. As the marked aversion of the prince for the princess had never been any secret, it

was apprehended, not without reason, that he might revolt against the condition of the will, and light up the

flame of civil discord in the kingdom; but the public enunciation of this solemn act, quieting the fears of the

nobility and the people on that head, excited these universal applauses, which went to the monarch's heart

like the stab of an assassin. Constance, who had a nearer interest than any human being in the result, from the

double motive of glory and personal affection, laid hold of this opportunity for expressing her gratitude. The

prince had much ado to keep his feelings within bounds. He received the compliment of the princess with so

constrained an air, and evinced so unusual a disorder in his behaviour, as scarcely to reply in a manner suited

to the common forms of good breeding. At last, no longer master of his violent passions, he went up to

Siffredi, whom the formalities of his office detained near the royal person, and said to him in a low tone of

voice What is the meaning of all this, Leontio? The signature which I deposited in your daughter's hands

My liege, interrupted Siffredi again with a tone of firmness, look to your own glory. If you refuse to comply

with the injunctions of the king, your uncle, you lose the crown of Sicily. No sooner had he thrown in this

salutary hint, than he got away from the king, to prevent all possibility of a reply. Enriquez was left in a most

embarrassing situation. A thousand opposite emotions agitated him at once. He was exasperated against

Siffredi: to give up Blanche was more than he could endure: so that, balancing between his private feelings

and the calls of public honour, he was doubtful to which side he should incline. At length his doubts were

resolved, under the idea of having found the means to secure Siffredi's daughter, without giving up his claim

to the throne. He affected therefore an entire submission to the will of Roger, in the hope, while a

dispensation from his marriage with his cousin was soliciting at Rome, of gaining the leading nobility by his

largesses, and thus establishing his power so firmly, as not to be under the necessity of fulfilling the

After forming this design, he got to be more composed; and turning towards Constance, confirmed to her

what the lord high chancellor had read in presence of the whole assembly. But, at the very moment when he

had so far betrayed himself as to pledge his faith, Blanche arrived in the hall of council. She came thither, by

her father's command, to pay her duty to the princess; and her ears, on entering, were startled at the

expressions of Enriquez. In addition to this shock, Leontio, determined not to leave her in doubt of her

misfortune, accompanied her presentation to Constance with these words: Daughter, make your homage

acceptable to your queen; call down upon her the blessings of a prosperous reign and a happy marriage. This

terrible blow overwhelmed the unfortunate Blanche. Vain were all her attempts to suppress her anguish; her

countenance changed successively from the deepest blush to a deadly paleness, and she trembled from head

to foot. And yet the princess had no suspicion how the matter really stood; but attributed the confused style of

her compliment to the awkwardness of a young person brought up in a state of rustication, and totally

unacquainted with the manners of a court. But the young king was more in the secret. The sight of Blanche

put him out of countenance: and the despair, too legible in her eyes, was enough to drive him out of his

senses. Her feelings were not to be misunderstood; and they pointed at him as the most faithless of men.

Could he have spoken to her, it might have tranquillized his agitation: but how to lay hold of the happy

moment, when all Sicily, at least the illustrious part of it, was fixed in anxious expectation on his

proceedings? Besides, the stern and inflexible Siffredi extinguished at once every ray of hope. This minister,

who was at no loss to decipher the hearts of the two lovers, and was firmly resolved, if possible, to prevent

the evil consequences impending over the state from the violence of this imprudent attachment, got his

daughter out of the assembly with the dexterity of a practised courtier, and regained the road to Belmonte

with her in his possession, determined, for more reasons than one, to marry her as soon as possible.

When they reached home, he gave her to understand all the horror of her destiny, by announcing his promise

to the constable. Just heaven! exclaimed she, transported into a paroxysm of despair, which her father's

presence could not restrain, what unparalleled sufferings have you the cruelty to lay up in store for the ill

fated Blanche? Her agony went to such a degree of violence as to suspend every power of her soul. Her limbs

seemed as if stiffened under the icy grasp of death. Cold and pale, she fell senseless into her father's arms.

Neither was he insensible to her melancholy condition. Yet, feeling as he did all the alarm and anxiety of a

parent, the stern inflexibility of the statesman remained unshaken. Blanche, after a time, was recalled to life

and feeling, rather by the keenness of her mental pangs than by the means which Siffredi used for her

recovery. Languishingly did she raise her scarcely conscious eyes: when glancing on the author of her

misery, as he was anxiously employed about her person; . . . . My lord, said she, with inarticulate and

convulsive accents, I am ashamed to let you see my weakness: but death, which cannot be long in finishing

my torments, will soon rid you of a wretched daughter, who has ventured to dispose of her heart without

consulting you. No, my dear Blanche, answered Leontio, your death would be too dear a sacrifice: Virtue will

resume her empire over your actions. The constable's proposals do you honour; it is one of the most

considerable alliances in the state . . . . I esteem his person and am sensible of his merit, interrupted Blanche;

but, my lord, the king had given me encouragement to indulge . . . . Daughter, vociferated Siffredi, breaking

in upon her discourse, I anticipate all you have to say on that subject. Your partiality for the prince is no

secret to me, nor would it meet my disapprobation under other circumstances. You should even see me active

and ardent to secure for you the hand of Enriquez, if the cause of glory and the welfare of the realm

demanded it not indispensably for Constance. It is on the sole condition of marrying that princess, that the

late king has nominated him his successor. Would you have him prefer you to the crown of Sicily? Believe

me, my heart bleeds at the mortal blow which impends over you. Yet, since we cannot contend with the fates,

make a magnanimous effort. Your fame is concerned, not to let the whole nation see that you have nursed up

a delusive hope. Your sensibility towards the person of the king might even give birth to ignominious

rumours. The only method of preserving yourself from their poison, is to marry the constable. In short,

Blanche, there is no time left for irresolution. The king has decided between a throne and the possession of

your charms. He has fixed his choice on Constance. The constable holds my words in pledge; enable me to

redeem it, I beseech you. Or if nothing but a paramount necessity can fix your wavering resolution, I must

Ending with this threat, he left her to make her own reflections on what had passed. He was in hopes that

after having weighed the reasons he had urged to support her virtue against the bias of her feelings, she would

determine of herself to admit the constable's addresses. He was not mistaken in his conjecture: but at what an

expense did the wretched Blanche rise to this height of virtuous resolution! Her condition was that in the

whole world the most deserving of pity. The affliction of finding her fears realized respecting the in fidelity

of Enriquez, and of being compelled, besides losing the man of her choice, to sacrifice herself to another

whom she could never love, occasioned her such storms of passion and alternate tossings of frantic

desperation, as to bring with each successive moment a variety of vindictive torture. If my sad fate is fixed,

exclaimed she, how can I triumph over it but by death? Merciless powers, who preside over our wayward

fortunes, why feed and tantalize me with the most flattering hopes, only to plunge me headlong into a gulf of

miseries? And thou too, perfidious lover! to rush into the arms of another, when all those vows of eternal

fidelity were mine. So soon then is that plighted faith void and forgotten? To punish thee for so cruel a

deception, may it please heaven, in its retribution, to make the conscious couch of conjugal endearment,

polluted as it must be by perjury, less the scene of pleasure than the dungeon of remorse! May the fond

caresses of Constance distil poison through thy faithless heart! Let us rival one another in the horrors of our

nuptials! Yes, traitor, I mean to wed the constable, though shrinking from his ardent touch, to avenge me on

myself! to be my own scourge and tormentor, for having selected so fatally the object of my frantic passion.

Since deeprooted obedience to the will of God forbids to entertain the thought of a premature death,

whatever days may be allotted me to drag on shall be but a lengthened chain of heaviness and torment. If a

sentiment of love still lurks about your heart, it will be revenge enough for me to cast myself into your

presence, the devoted bride or victim of another: but if you have thrown off my remembrance with your own

vows, Sicily at least shall glory in the distinction of reckoning among its natives a woman who knew how to

In such a state of mind did this wretched martyr to love and duty pass the night preceding her marriage with

the constable. Siffredi, finding her the next morning ready to comply with his wishes, hastened to avail

himself of this favourable disposition. He sent for the constable to Belmonte on that very day, and the

marriage ceremony was performed privately in the chapel of the castle. What a crisis for Blanche! It was not

enough to renounce a crown, to lose a lover endeared to her by every tie, and to yield herself up to the object

of her hatred. In addition to all this, she must put a constraint on her sentiments before a husband, naturally

jealous, and long occupied with the most ardent admiration of her charms. The bridegroom, delighted in the

possession of her, was all day long in her presence. He did not leave her to the miserable consolation of

pouring out her sorrows in secret. When night arrived, Leontio's daughter felt all her disgust and terror

redoubled. But what seemed likely to become of her when her women, after having undressed her, left her

alone with the constable? He enquired respectfully into the cause of her apparent faintness and discomposure.

The question was sufficiently embarrassing to Blanche, who affected to be ill. Her husband was at first

deceived by her pretences; but he did not long remain in such an error. Being, as he was, sincerely concerned

at the condition in which he saw her, but still pressing her to go to bed, his urgent solicitations, falsely

construed by her, offered to her wounded mind an image so cruel and indelicate, that she could no longer

dissemble what was passing within, but gave a free course to her sighs and tears. What a discovery for a man

who thought himself at the summit of his wishes! He no longer doubted but the distressed state of his wife

was fraught with some sinister omen to his love. And yet, though this knowledge reduced him to a situation

almost as deplorable as that of Blanche, he had sufficient command over himself to keep his suspicions

within his own breast. He redoubled his assiduities, and went on pressing his bride to lay herself down,

assuring her that the repose of which she stood in need should be undisturbed by his interruption. He offered

of his own accord even to call her women, if she was of opinion that their attendance could afford any relief

to her indisposition. Blanche, reviving at that proposal, told him that sleep was the best remedy for the

debility under which she laboured. He affected to think so too. They accordingly partook of the same bed, but

with a conduct altogether different from what the laws of love, sanctioned by the rites of marriage, might

While Siffredi's daughter was giving way to her grief, the constable was hunting in his own mind for the

causes which might render the nuptial office so contemptible a sinecure in his hands. He could not be long in

conjecturing that he had a rival, but when he attempted to discover him he was lost in the labyrinth of his own

ideas. All he knew with certainty, was the peculiar severity of his own fate. He had already passed two thirds

of the night in this perplexity of thought, when an undistinguishable noise grew gradually on his sense of

hearing. Great was his surprise when a footstep seemed audibly to pace about the room. He fancied himself

mistaken; for he recollected shutting the door himself after Blanche's women had retired. He drew back the

curtain to satisfy his senses on the occasion of this extraordinary noise. But the light in the chimney corner

had gone out, and he soon heard a feeble and melancholy voice calling Blanche with anxious and importunate

repetitions. Then did the suggestions of his jealousy transport him into rage. His insulted honour obliging him

to rush from the bed to which he had so long aspired, and either to prevent a meditated injury, or take

vengeance for its perpetration, he caught up his sword and flew forward in the direction whence the voice

seemed to proceed. He felt a naked blade opposed to his own. As he advanced, his antagonist retired. The

pursuit became more eager, the retreat more precipitate. His search was vigilant, and every corner of the

room seemed to contain its object, but that which he momentarily occupied. The darkness, however, favoured

the unknown invader, and he was nowhere to be found. The pursuer halted. He listened, but heard no sound.

It seemed like enchantment! He made for the door, under the idea that this was the outlet to the secret

assassin of his honour; yet the bolt was shot as fast as before. Unable to comprehend this strange occurrence,

he called those of his retinue who were most within reach of his voice. As he opened the door for this

purpose, he placed himself so as to prevent all egress, and stood upon his guard, lest the devoted victim of his

At his redoubled cries, some servants ran with lights. He laid hold of a taper, and renewed his search in the

chamber with his sword still drawn. Yet he found no one there, nor any apparent sign of any person having

been in the room. He was not aware of any private door, nor could he discover any practicable mode of

escape: yet for all this, he could not shut his eyes against the nature and circumstances of his misfortune. His

thoughts were all thrown into inextricable confusion. To ask any questions of Blanche was in vain: for she

had too deep an interest in perplexing the truth, to furnish any clue whatever to its discovery. He therefore

adopted the measure of unbosoming his griefs to Leontio; but previously sent away his attendants with the

excuse that he thought he had heard some noise in the room, but was mistaken. His fatherinlaw having left

his chamber in consequence of this strange disturbance, met him, and heard from his lips the particulars of

this unaccountable adventure. The narrative was accompanied with every indication of extreme agony,

Siffredi was surprised at the occurrence. Though it did not appear to him at all probable, that was no reason

for being easy about its reality. The king's passion might accomplish anything; and that idea alone justified

the most cruel apprehensions. But it could do no good to foster either the natural jealousy of his soninlaw,

or his particular suspicions arising out of circumstances. He therefore endeavoured to persuade him, with an

air of confidence, that this imaginary voice, and airy sword opposed to his substantial one, were, and could

possibly be, but the gratuitous creations of a fancy, under the influence of amorous distrust. It was morally

impossible that any person should have made his way into his daughter's chamber. With regard to the

melancholy, so visible in his wile's deportment, it might very naturally be attributed to precarious health and

delicacy of constitution. The honour of a husband need not be so tremblingly alive to all the qualms of

maiden fear and inexperience. Change of condition, in the case of a girl habituated to live almost without

human society, and abruptly consigned to the embraces of a man in whom love and previous acquaintance

had not inspired confidence, might innocently be the cause of these tears, of these sighs, and of this lively

affliction so irksome to his feelings. But it was to be considered that tenderness, especially in the hearts of

young ladies, fortified by the pride of blood against the excesses of lovesick abandonment, was only to be

cherished into a flame by time and assiduity. He therefore exhorted him to tranquillize his disturbed mind; to

be ardently officious in redoubling every instance of affection; to create a soft and seducing interest in the

sensibility of Blanche. In short, he besought him earnestly to return to her apartment, and laboured to

persuade him that his distrust and confusion would only set her on an unconjugal and litigious defence of her

The constable returned no answer to the arguments of his father inlaw, whether because he began to think

in good earnest that his senses were imposed on by the disorder of his mind, or because he thought it more to

the purpose to dissemble, than to undertake ineffectually to convince the old man of an event so devoid of all

likelihood. He returned to his wife's chamber, laid himself down by her side, and endeavoured to obtain from

sleep some relief from his extreme uneasiness. Blanche, on her part, the unhappy Blanche, was not a whit

more at her ease. Her ears had been but too open to the same alarming sounds, which had assailed her

husband's peace; nor could she construe into illusion an adventure of which she well knew the secret and the

motives. She was surprised that Enriquez should attempt to find his way into her apartment, after having

pledged his faith so solemnly to the Princess Constance. Instead of feeding her soul with vanity, or deriving

any flattering omens from a proceeding fraught with personal tenderness, but destructive to self

approbation, she considered it as a new insult, and her heart was only so much the more exasperated with

While Siffredi's daughter, with all her prejudices excited against the young king, believed him the most guilty

of men, that unhappy prince, more than ever ensnared by Blanche, was anxious for an interview, to satisfy

her mind on a subject which seemed to make so much against him. For that purpose he would have visited

Belmonte sooner, but for a press of business too urgent to be neglected; nor could he withdraw himself from

the court before that night. He was perfectly at home in all the turnings of a place where he had been brought

up, and therefore was at no loss to slip into the castle of Siffredi. Nay, he was still in possession of the key to

a secret door communicating with the gardens. By this inlet did he gain his former apartment, and thence

found his way into Blanche's chamber. Only conceive what must have been the astonishment of that prince to

find a man in possession, and to feel a sword opposed to his guard. He was just on the point of betraying all,

and of punishing the rebel on the very spot, whose sacrilegious hand had dared to lift itself against the person

of its lawful sovereign. But then the delicacy due to the daughter of Leontio held his indignation in check. He

retreated in the same direction as he had advanced, and regained the Palermo road, in more distress and

perplexity than ever. Getting home some little time before daybreak, his apartment afforded him the most

quiet retreat. But his thoughts were all on the road back to Belmonte. The restingplace of his affections, a

sense of honour, in a word, love with all its pretensions and surmises, would never allow him to delay an

explanation, involving all the circumstances of so strange and melancholy an adventure.

As soon as it was daylight he gave out that he was going on a hunting expedition. Under cover of sporting,

his huntsmen and a chosen party of his courtiers penetrated into the forest of Belmonte under his direction.

The chase was followed for some time, as a blind to his real design. When he saw the whole party eagerly

driving on, and wholly engrossed by the sport, he galloped off in a different direction, and struck, without any

attendants, into the road towards Leontio's castle. The various tracks of the forest were too well known to him

to admit of his losing his way. His impatience, too, would not allow him to take any thought of his horse; so

that the moments scarcely flitted faster, than his expedition in leaving behind him the distance which

separated him from the object of his love. His very soul was on the rack for some plausible excuse to plead

for a private interview with Siffredi's daughter, when, crossing a narrow path just at the park gate, he

observed two women sitting close by him, in earnest conversation under the shelter of a tree. It might well be

supposed that these females belonged to the castle; and even that probability was sufficient to rouse an

interest in him. But his emotion was heightened into a feeling beyond his reason to control, for these ladies

happened to look round on hearing the trot of a horse advancing in that direction; when at once he recognized

his dear Blanche. The fact was, she had made her escape from the castle with Nisa, the person of all others

among her women most in her confidence, that she might at least have the satisfaction of weeping over her

He flew, and seemed rather to throw himself headlong than to fall at her feet. But when he beheld in the

expression of her countenance every mark of the deepest affliction, his heart was softened. Lovely Blanche,

said he, do not, let me entreat you, give way to the emotions of your grief. Appearances, I own, must

represent me as guilty in your eyes: but when you shall be made acquainted with my project in your behalf,

what you consider as a crime will be transformed in your thoughts into a proof of my innocence, and an

evidence of my unparalleled affection. These words, calculated, according to the views of Enriquez, to allay

the grief of Blanche, served only to redouble her affliction. Fain would she have answered, but her sobs

stifled her utterance. The prince, thunderstruck at the deathlike agitation of her flame, addressed her thus.

What, madam, is there no possibility of tranquilizing your agitation? By what sad mischance have I lost your

confidence, at the very moment when my crown and even my life are at stake, in consequence of my

resolution to hold myself engaged to you? At this suggestion the daughter of Leontio, doing violence to her

own feelings, but thinking it necessary to explain herself, said to him My liege, your assurances are no

longer admissible. My destiny and yours are henceforward as far asunder as the poles. Ah! Blanche,

interrupted Enriquez with impatience, what cutting words are these, too painful for my sense of hearing?

Who dares step in between our loves? Who would venture to stand forward against the headlong rage of a

king who would kindle all Sicily into a conflagration, rather than suffer you to be ravished from his

longcherished hopes? All your power, my liege, great as it is, replied the daughter of Siffredi in a tone of

melancholy, becomes inefficient against the obstacles in the way of our union. I know not how to tell it you,

Married to the constable! exclaimed the prince, starting back to some distance from her. He could proceed no

further in his discourse, so completely was he thunderstruck at the intelligence. Overwhelmed by this

unexpected blow, he felt his strength forsake him. His unconscious limbs laid themselves without his

guidance against the trunk of a tree just behind him. His countenance was pallid, his whole frame in a tremor,

his mind bewildered and his spirits depressed. With no sense or faculty at liberty but that of gazing, and there

every power of his soul was suspended on Blanche, he made her feel most poignantly how he himself was

agonized by the fatal event she had announced. The expression of countenance on her part was such as to

show him that her emotions were not uncongenial with his own. Thus did these two distressed lovers for a

time preserve a silence towards each other, which portended something of terror in its calmness. At length the

prince, recovering a little from his disorder by an effort of courage, resumed the discourse, and said to

Blanche with a sigh Madam, what have you done? You have destroyed me, and involved yourself in the

Blanche was offended at the seeming reproaches of the king, when the strongest grounds of complaint were

apparently on her side. What! my lord, answered she, do you add dissimulation to infidelity? Would you have

me reject the evidence of my own eyes and ears, so as to believe you innocent in spite of their report? No, my

lord, I will own to you such an effort of abstraction is not in my power. And yet, madam, replied the king,

these witnesses by whose testimony you have been so fully convinced, are but impostors. They have been in

a conspiracy to betray you. It is no less the fact that I am innocent and faithful, than it is true that you are

married to the constable. What is it you say, my lord? replied she. Did I not overhear you confirming the

pledge of your hand and heart to Constance? Have you not bound yourself to the nobility of the realm, and

undertaken to comply with the will of the late king? Has not the princess received the homage of your new

subjects as their queen, and in quality of bride to Prince Enriquez? Were my eyes then fascinated? Tell me,

tell me rather, traitor, that Blanche was weighed as dust in the balance of your heart, when compared with the

attractions of a throne. Without lowering yourself so far as to assume what you no longer feel, and what

perhaps you never felt, own at once that the crown of Sicily appeared a more tenable possession with

Constance than with the daughter of Leontio. You are in the right, my lord. My title to an illustrious throne,

and to the heart of a prince like you, stands on an equally precarious footing. It was vanity in the extreme to

prefer a claim to either: but you ought not to have drawn me on into error. You well recollect what alarms

were my portion at the very thought of losing you, of which I had almost a supernatural foreboding. Why did

you lull my apprehensions to sleep? To what purpose was that delusive mockery? I might else have accused

fate rather than yourself, and you would at least have retained an interest in my heart, though unaccompanied

by a hand which no other suitor could ever have obtained. As we are now circumstanced, your justification is

out of season. I am married to the constable. To relieve me from the continuance of an interview, which casts

a shade over my purity hitherto unsullied, permit me, my lord, without failing in due respect, to with draw

from the presence of a prince to whose addresses I am no longer at liberty to listen.

With these words, she darted away from Enriquez in as hurried a step as the agitation of her spirits would

allow. Stop, madam, exclaimed he, drive not to despair a prince, inclined to overturn a throne, which you

reproach him for having preferred to yourself, rather than yield to the importunities of his new subjects. That

sacrifice is under present circumstances superfluous, rejoined Blanche. The bond must be broken between the

constable and me, before any effect can be produced by these generous transports. Since I am not my own

mistress, little would it avail that Sicily should be embroiled, nor does it concern me to whom you give your

hand. If I have betrayed my own weakness, and suffered my heart to be surprised, at least shall I muster

fortitude enough to suppress every soft emotion, and prove to the new king of Sicily, that the wife of the

constable is no longer the mistress of Prince Enriquez. While this conversation was passing, they reached the

park gate. With a sudden spring she and Nisa got within the walls. As they took care to fasten the wicket after

them, the prince was left in a state of melancholy and stupefaction. He could not recover from the stunning

sensation, occasioned by the intelligence of Blanche's marriage. Unjust may I well call you, exclaimed he.

You have buried all remembrance of our solemn engagement! Spite of my protestations and your own, our

fates are rent asunder? The longcherished hope of possessing those charms was an empty phantom! Ah!

cruel as you are, how dearly have I purchased the distinction, of compelling you to acknowledge the

At that moment his rival's happiness, heightened by the colouring of jealousy, presented itself to his mind in

all the horrors of that frantic passion. So arbitrary was its sway over him for some moments, that he was on

the point of sacrificing the constable, and even Siffredi, to his blind vengeance. Reason, however, calmed by

little and little the violence of his transports. And yet the obvious impossibility of effacing from the mind of

Blanche her natural conviction of his infidelity, reduced him to despair. He flattered himself with weaning

her from her prejudices, could he but converse with her secure from interruption. To attain this end, it seemed

the most feasible plan to get rid of the constable. He therefore determined to have him arrested, as a person

suspected of treasonable designs, in the then unsettled state of public affairs. This commission was given to

the captain of his guard, who went immediately to Belmonte, secured the person of his prisoner just as the

This occurrence spread an alarm at Belmonte. Siffredi took his departure forthwith, to offer his own

responsibility to the king for the innocence of his soninlaw, and to represent in their true colours the

unpleasant consequences attending such arbitrary exertions of power. The prince, who had anticipated such a

proceeding on the part of his minister, and was determined at least to secure himself a free interview with

Blanche before the release of the constable, had expressly forbidden any one to address him till the next day.

But Leontio, setting this prohibition at defiance, contrived so well as to make his way into the king's

chamber. My liege, said he, with an air of humility tempered with firmness, if it is allowable for a subject full

of respect and loyalty to complain of his master, I have to arraign you before the tribunal of your own

conscience. What crime has my soninlaw committed? Has your majesty sufficiently reflected what an

everlasting reproach is entailed on my family? Are the consequences of an imprisonment calculated to disgust

all the most important officers of the state with the service, a matter of indifference? I have undoubted

information, answered the king, that the constable holds a criminal correspondence with the Infant Don

Pedro. A criminal correspondence! interrupted Leontio, with surprise. Ah! my liege, give no ear to the

surmise. Your majesty is played upon. Treason never gained a footing in the family of Siffredi. It is sufficient

security for the constable that he is my soninlaw, to place him above all suspicion. The constable is

Since you speak to me so openly, replied the king, I will adopt the same sincerity with you. You complain of

the constable's imprisonment! Be it so. And have I no reason to complain of your cruelty? it is you, barbarous

Siffredi, who have wrested my tranquillity from me, and reduced your sovereign, by your officious cares, to

envy the lowliest of the human race. For do not so far deceive yourself as to believe that I shall ever enter into

your views. My marriage with Constance is quite out of the question . . . . What, my liege, interrupted

Leontio, with an expression of horror, is there any doubt about your marrying the princess, after having

flattered her with that hope in the face of your whole people? If their wishes are disappointed, replied the

king, take the credit to yourself: Wherefore did you reduce me to the necessity of giving them a promise my

heart would not allow me to make good? Where was the occasion to fill up with the name of Constance an

instrument designed for the elevation of your own daughter? You could not be a stranger to my design; need

you have completed your tyranny by devoting Blanche to the arms of a man to whom she could not give her

heart? And what authority have you over mine to dispose of it in favour of a princess whom I detest? Have

you forgotten that she is the daughter of that cruel Matilda, who, trampling the rights of consanguinity and

human nature under foot, caused my father to breathe his last under all the rigours of a hard captivity? And

should I marry her! No, Siffredi, throw away that hope. Before the lurid torch of such an hymeneal shall be

kindled in your presence, you shall behold all Sicily in flames, and the expiring embers quenched in blood.

Do not my ears deceive me? exclaimed Leontio. Ah! sovereign, what a scene do you present me with! Who

can hear such menaces without shuddering? But I am too forward to take the alarm, continued he in an

altered voice. You are in too close a union with your subjects to be the instrument of a catastrophe so

melancholy. You will not suffer passion to triumph over your reason. Virtues like yours shall never lose their

lustre by the tarnish of human and ordinary weakness. If I have given my daughter into the arms of the

constable, it was with the design, my liege, of securing to your majesty a powerful subject, able by his own

valour, and the army under his command, to maintain your party against that of the Prince Don Pedro. It

appeared to me that by connecting him with my family in so close a bond . . . . Yes, yes! This bond,

exclaimed Prince Enriquez, this fatal bond has been my ruin. Unfeeling friend, to aim a wound at my vital

part! What commission had you to take care of my interests at the expense of my affections? Why did you

not leave me to support my pretensions by my own arm? Was there any question about my courage that I

should be thought incompetent to reduce my rebellious subjects to their obedience? Means might have been

found to punish the constable had he dared to have fallen off from his allegiance! I am well aware of the

difference between a lawful king and an arbitrary tyrant. The happiness of our people is our first duty. But are

we, on the other hand, to be the slaves of our subjects? From the moment when we are selected by heaven for

our high office, do we lose the common privilege of nature, the birthright of the human race, to dispose of our

affections in whatsoever current they may flow? Well then! if we are less our own masters than the lowest of

the human race, take back, Siffredi, that sovereign authority you affect to have secured to me by the wreck of

You cannot but be acquainted, my liege, replied the minister, that it was on your marriage with the princess,

the late king, your uncle, made the succession of the crown to depend. And by what right, rejoined Enriquez,

did even he assume to himself so arbitrary a disposition? Was it on such unworthy terms that he succeeded

his brother, King Charles? How came you yourself to be so besotted as to allow of a stipulation so unjust?

For a high chancellor, you are not too well versed in our laws and constitutions. To cut the matter short,

though I have promised my hand to Constance, the engagement was not voluntary. I do not therefore think

myself bound to keep my word; and if Don Pedro founds on my refusal any hope of succeeding to the throne

without involving the nation in a bloody and destructive contest, his error will be too soon visible. The sword

shall decide between us to whom the prize of empire may more worthily fall. Leontio could not venture to

press him further, and confined himself to supplicating on his knees for the liberty of his soninlaw. That

boon he obtained. Go, said the king to him, return to Belmonte, the constable shall follow you thither without

delay. The minister departed, and made the best of his way to Belmonte, under the persuasion that his

soninlaw would overtake him on the road. In this he was mistaken. Enriquez was determined to visit

Blanche that night, and with such views he deferred the enlargement of her husband till the next morning.

During this time the feelings of the constable were of the most agonizing nature. His imprisonment had

opened his eyes to the real cause of his misfortune. He gave himself up to jealousy without restraint or

remorse, and belying the good faith which had hitherto rendered his character so valuable, his thoughts were

all bent on his revenge. As he conjectured rightly that the king would not fail to reconnoitre Blanche's

apartment during the night, it was his object to surprise them together. He therefore besought the governor of

the castle at Palermo to allow of his absence from the prison, on the assurance of his return before daybreak.

The governor, who was devoted to his interest, gave his permission so much the more easily, as being already

advertised that Siffredi had procured his liberty. Indeed, he even went so far as to supply him with a horse for

his journey to Belmonte. The constable on his arrival there fastened his horse to a tree. He then got into the

park by a little gate of which he had the key, and was lucky enough to slip into the castle without being

recognized by any one. On reaching his wife's apartment he concealed himself in the antechamber, behind a

screen placed as if expressly for his use. His intention was to observe narrowly what was going forward, and

to present himself on a sudden in Blanche's chamber at the sound of any footstep he should hear. The first

object he beheld was Nisa, taking leave of her mistress for the night, and withdrawing to a closet where she

Siffredi's daughter, who had been at no loss to fathom the meaning of her husband's imprisonment, was fully

convinced that he would not return to Belmonte that night, although she had heard from her father of the

king's assurance that the constable should set out immediately after him. As little could she doubt but

Enriquez would avail himself of the interval to see and converse with her at his pleasure. With this

expectation she awaited the prince's arrival, to reproach him for a line of conduct so pregnant with fatal

consequences to herself. As she had anticipated, a very short time after Nisa had retired the sliding panel

opened, and the king threw himself at the feet of his beloved. Madam, said he, condemn me not without a

hearing. It is true I have occasioned the constable's imprisonment, but then consider that it was the only

method left me for my justification. Attribute therefore that desperate stratagem to yourself alone. Why did

you refuse to listen to my explanation this morning? Alas! Tomorrow your husband will be liberated, and I

shall no longer have an opportunity of addressing you. Hearken to me then for the last time. If the loss of you

has embittered the remainder of my days, vouchsafe me at least the melancholy satisfaction of convincing

you that I have not called down this misfortune on myself by my own inconstancy. I did indeed confirm the

pledge of my hand to Constance, but then it was unavoidable in the situation to which your father's policy had

reduced us. It was necessary to put this imposition on the princess for your interest and for my own; to secure

to you your crown, and with it the hand and heart of your devoted lover. I had flattered myself with the

prospect of success. Measures were already taken to supersede that engagement, but you have destroyed the

bright illusions of my fancy; and, by disposing of yourself too precipitately, have antedated an eternity of

torment for two hearts, whom a mutual and perfect love might have conducted to perpetual bliss.

He concluded this explanation with such evident marks of unfeigned agony, that Blanche was affected by his

words. She had no longer any hesitation about his innocence. At first her joy was unbounded at the

conviction; but then again a sense of their cruel circumstances gained the ascendant over her mind. Ah! my

honoured lord, said she to the prince, after such a determination of our destinies, you only inflict a new pang

by informing me that you were not to blame. What have I done, wretched as I am? My keen resentment has

betrayed me into error. I fancied myself cast off; and in the moment of my anger, accepted the hand of the

constable, whose addresses my father promoted. But the crime is all my own, though the woes are mutual.

Alas! In the very conjuncture when I accused you of deceiving me, it was by my own act, too credulously

impassioned as I was, that the ties were broken, which I had sworn for ever to make indissoluble. Take your

revenge, my lord, in your turn. Indulge your hatred against the ungrateful Blanche. . . . Forget . . . . What! and

is it in my power then, madam? interrupted Enriquez with a dejected air: how is it possible to tear a passion

from my heart, which even your injustice had not the power of extinguishing? Yet it becomes necessary for

you to make that effort, my liege, replied the daughter of Siffredi, with a deep sigh . . . . And shall you be

equal to that effort yourself? replied the king. I am not confident with myself for my success, answered she:

but I shall spare no pains in the attainment of my object. Ah! unfeeling fair one, said the prince, you will

easily banish Enriquez from your remembrance, since you can contemplate such a purpose so steadfastly.

Whither then does your imagination lead? said Blanche, in a more decisive tone. Do you flatter yourself that I

can permit the continuance of your tender assiduities? No, my lord, banish that hope for ever from your

thoughts. If I was not born for royalty, neither has heaven formed me to be degraded by illicit addresses. My

husband, like yourself, my liege, is allied to the noble house of Anjou. Though the call of duty were less

peremptory, in opposing an insurmountable obstacle to your insidious proposals, a sense of pride would

hinder me from admitting them. I conjure you to withdraw: we must meet no more. What a barbarous

sentence! exclaimed the king. Ah! Blanche, is it possible that you should treat me with so much severity? Is it

not enough then to weigh me down, that the constable should be in possession of your charms? And yet you

would cut me off from the bare sight of you, the only comfort which remains to me! For that very reason

avoid my presence, answered Siffredi's daughter, not without some tears of tenderness. The contemplation of

what we have dearly loved is no longer a blessing, when we have lost all hope of the possession. Adieu, my

lord! Shun my very image. You owe that exertion to your own honour and to my good name. I claim it also

for my own peace of mind: for to deal sincerely, though my virtue should be steady enough to combat with

the suggestions of my heart, the very remembrance of your affection stirs up so cruel a conflict, that it is

Her utterance of these words was attended with so energetic an action, as to overset the light placed on a table

behind her, and its fall left the room in darkness. Blanche picked it up. She then opened the door of the

antechamber, and went to Nisa's closet, who was not yet gone to bed, for the purpose of lighting it again.

She was now returning, after having accomplished her errand. The king, who was waiting for her impatiently,

no sooner saw her approach, than he resumed his ardent plea with her, to allow of his attentions. At the

prince's voice, the constable rushed impetuously, sword in hand, into the room, almost at the same moment

with his bride. Advancing up to Enriquez with all the indignation which his fury kindled within him: This is

too much, tyrant, cried he; flatter not yourself that I am cowardly enough to bear with this affront, which you

have offered to my honour. Ay! traitor, answered the king, standing on his guard, lay aside the vain

imagination of being able to compass your purpose with impunity. With these mutual taunts, they entered on

a conflict, too violent to be long undecided. The constable, fearing lest Siffredi and his attendants should be

roused too soon by the piercing shrieks of Blanche, and should interpose between him and his revenge, took

no care of himself. His frenzy robbed him of all skill. He fenced so heedlessly, as to run headlong on his

adversary's sword. The weapon entered his body up to the hilt. He fell; and the king instantaneously checked

The daughter of Leontio, touched at her husband's condition, and rising superior to her natural repugnance,

threw herself on the ground, and was anxious to afford him every assistance. But that illfated bridegroom

was too deeply prejudiced against her, to allow himself to be softened by the evidences she gave of her

sorrow and her pity. Death, whose hand he felt upon him, could not stifle the transports of his jealousy. In

these his last moments, no image presented itself to his mind but his rival's success. So insufferable was that

idea to him, that, collecting together the little strength he had left, he raised his sword, which he still grasped

convulsively, and plunged it deep in Blanche's bosom. Die, said he, as he inflicted the fatal wound; die,

faithless bride, since the ties of wedlock were not strong enough to preserve to me the vow which you had

sworn upon the altar. And as for you, Enriquez, pursued he, triumph not too loudly on your destinies. You are

prevented from taking advantage of my froward fortune; and I die content. Scarcely did these words quiver

on his lips, when he breathed his last. His countenance, overcast as it was with the shades of death, had still

something in it of fierceness and of terror. That of Blanche presented a quite different aspect. The wound she

had received was mortal. She fell on the scarcely breathing body of her husband: and the blood of the

innocent victim flowed in the same stream with that of her murderer, who had executed his cruel purpose so

This illfated prince uttered a cry at the sight of Blanche as she fell. Pierced deeper than herself by the stab

which deprived her of life, he did his utmost to afford the same relief to her as she had offered, though at so

fatal an expense, to one who might have rewarded her better. But she addressed him in these words, while the

last breath quivered on her lips: My lord, your assiduities are fruitless, I am the victim. Merciless fate

demands me, and I resign myself to death. May the anger of heaven be appeased by the sacrifice, and the

prosperity of your reign be confirmed. As she was with difficulty uttering these last words, Leontio, drawn

thither by the reverberation of her shrieks, came into the room; and, thunderstruck at the dreadful scene

before him, remained fixed to the spot where he stood. Blanche, without noticing his presence, went on

addressing herself to the king. Farewell, prince, said she; cherish my memory with the tenderness it deserves.

My affection and my misfortunes entitle me at least to that. Harbour no aversion to my father; he is innocent.

Be a comfort to his remaining days; assuage his grief; acknowledge his fidelity. Above all, convince him of

my spotless virtue. With this I charge you, before every other consideration. Farewell, my dear Enriquez . . . .

Here her words were intercepted by the approach of death. For some time the king maintained a sullen

silence. At length he said to Siffredi, whose senses seemed to be locked up in a mortal trance: Behold,

Leontio; feed on the contemplation of your own work. In this tragical event, you may ruminate on the issue of

your officious cares, and your overweening zeal for my service. The old man returned no answer, so deeply

was he penetrated by his affliction. But wherefore dwell on the description of circumstances, when the

powers of language must sink under the weight of such a catastrophe? Suffice it to say, that they mutually

poured forth their sorrows in the most affecting terms, as soon as their grief allowed them to give vent to its

Through the whole course of his life, the king cherished a tender recollection of his mistress. He could not

bring himself to marry Constance. The infant Don Pedro combined with that princess, and by their joint

efforts, an obstinate attempt was made to carry the will of Roger into execution; but they were compelled in

the end to give way to Prince Enriquez, who gained the ascendancy over all his enemies. As for Siffredi, the

melancholy he contracted from having been the cause of destruction to his dearest friends, gave him a disgust

to the world, and made a longer abode in his native country insupportable. He turned his back on Sicily for

ever; and, coming over into Spain with Portia, his surviving daughter, purchased this mansion. He lived here

nearly fifteen years after the death of Blanche, and had the consolation, before his own death, of establishing

Portia in the world. She married Don Jerome de Silva, and I am the only issue of that marriage. Such, pursued

the widow of Don Pedro de Penares, is the story of my family; a faithful recital of the melancholy events

represented in that picture, which was painted by order of my grandfather Leontio, as a record to his posterity

ORTIZ, her companions, and myself, after having heard this tale, withdrew together from the hall, where we

left Aurora with Elvira. There they lengthened out the remainder of the day in a mutual intercourse of

confidence. They were not likely to be weary of each other: and on the following morning, when we took our

leave, there was as much to do to part them, as if they had been two friends brought up in the closest habits of

In due time we reached Salamanca without any impediment. There we immediately engaged a

readyfurnished house, and Dame Ortiz, as it had been before agreed, assumed the name of Donna Kimena

de Guzman. She had played the part of a duenna too long not to be able to shift her character according to

circumstances. One morning she went out with Aurora, a waitingmaid and a man servant, and betook

herself to a lodginghouse, where we had been informed that Pacheco most commonly took up his abode.

She asked if there was any lodging to be let there. The answer was in the affirmative; and they showed her

into a room in very neat condition, which she hired. She paid down earnest to the landlady, telling her that it

was for one of her nephews who .was coming from Toledo to finish his studies at Salamanca, and might be

The duenna and my mistress, after having made sure of this apartment, went back the way they came, and the

lovely Aurora, without loss of time, metamorphosed herself into a spruce young spark. She concealed her

black ringlets under a braid of light coloured hair, the better to disguise herself; . . . . manufactured her

eyebrows to correspond, and dressed herself up in such a costume, as to look for all the world as if her sex

were of a piece with her appearance. Her deportment was free and easy; so that, with the exception of her

face, which was somewhat more delicate than became the manly character, there was nothing to lead to a

discovery of her masquerading. The waitingwoman who was to officiate as page, got into her paraphernalia

at the same time, and we had no apprehension respecting her competency to perform her part. There was no

danger of her beauty telling any tales; and besides, she could put on as brazenfaced a swagger as the most

impudent dog in town. After dinner, our two actresses, finding themselves in cue to make their first

appearance on the stage, where the scene was laid in the readyfurnished lodging, took me along with them.

We all three placed ourselves in the coach, and carried with us all the baggage we were likely to have

The landlady, Bernarda Ramirez by name, welcomed us with a glut of civility, and led the way to our room,

where we began to make arrangements with her. We concluded a bargain for our board by the month, which

she undertook should be suitable to our condition. Then we asked if she had her complement of boarders. I

have none at all at present, answered she. Not that there would be any want of enough, if I was of the mind to

take in all sorts of people: but young men of fashion are the thing for me. I expect one of that description this

morning: he is coming hither from Madrid to complete his education. Don Lewis Pacheco! But you must

have heard of him before now. No, said Aurora, I have no acquaintance whatever with the gentleman; and

since we are to be inmates together, you will do me a kindness by letting me a little into his character. Please

your honour, replied the landlady, leering at this outside of a man, his figure is as taking as your own; just the

same sort of make, and about the same size. Oh! how well you will do together! By St James, though I say it

who should not say it, I shall have about me two of the prettiest young fellows in all Spain. Well, but about

Don Lewis! for my mistress was in a fidget to ask the grand question. Of course; . . . . he is well with the

ladies in your parts! Enough of . . . . of love affairs . . . . on his hands! Oh! do not you be afraid of that,

rejoined the old lady; it is a forward sprig of gallantry, take my word for it. He has but to shew himself before

the works, and the citadel sends to capitulate. Among the number of his conquests, he has got into the good

graces of a lady, with as much youth and beauty as he will know what to do with. Her name is Isabella. Her

father is an old doctor of laws. She is over head and ears in love with him; absolutely out of her wits! Well,

but do tell me now, my dear little woman, interrupted Aurora, as if she was ready to burst, is he out of his

wits too? He used to be very fond of her, answered Bernarda Ramirez, before he went last to Madrid: but

whether he holds in the same mind still, I will not venture to say; because on these points he is not altogether

to be trusted. He is apt to flirt, first with one woman, and then with another, just as all you young deceivers

The bonny widow had scarcely got to the end of her harangue, before we heard a noise in the court. On

looking out at the window, behold! there appeared two young men dismounting from their steeds. Who

should it be, but the identical Don Lewis Pacheco, just arrived from Madrid with a servant behind him. The

old lady brushed off to go and usher him in; while my mistress was putting herself in order, not without some

palpitation of heart, to enact Don Felix to the best of her conceptions. Without waiting for any formalities, in

marched Don Lewis to our apartment in his travelling dress. I have just been informed, said he, paying his

respects to Aurora, that a young nobleman of Toledo takes up his abode in this house. May I take the liberty

of expressing my joy in the circumstance, and hoping that we may be better acquainted? During my mistress's

reply to this compliment, it seemed to me as if Pacheco did not know what to make of so smockfaced a

young spark. Indeed he could not refrain from declaring a more than ordinary admiration of an air and figure

so attractive. After abundance of discourse, with every demonstration of reciprocal good breeding, Don

While he was getting his boots off and changing his dress and linen, a sort of a page, on the lookout after

him to deliver a letter, met Aurora by chance on the staircase. Her he mistook for Don Lewis. Thinking he

had found the right owner for this tender message, of which he was the Mercury Softly! my honoured lord

and master, said he, though I have not the honour of knowing Signor Pacheco, there can be no occasion for

asking whether you are the man. It is impossible to be mistaken in the guess. No, my friend, answered my

mistress with a most happy presence of mind, assuredly you are not mistaken. You acquit yourself of your

embassies to a marvel. I am Don Lewis Pacheco. You may retire! I will find an opportunity of sending an

answer. The page vanished, and Aurora shutting herself up with her waitingmaid and me, opened the letter,

and read to us as follows: "I have just heard of your being at Salamanca. With what joy did I receive the

news! I thought I should have gone out of my senses. But do you love Isabella as well as ever? Lose no time

in assuring her that you are still the same. In good truth, she will almost expire with pleasure when once she

This is a mighty passionate epistle, said Aurora. The heart that indited it has been caught in a trap. This lady

is a rival of no mean capacity. No pains must be spared to wean Don Lewis from her, and even to prevent any

future interview. The undertaking is difficult, I acknowledge, and yet there seems no reason to despair of the

result. My mistress, taking her own hint, fell into a fit of musing; from which having recovered as soon as she

fell into it, she added I will lay a wager they are at daggers drawn in less than twentyfour hours. It so

happened that Pacheco, after a short repose in his apartment, came to look after us in ours, and entered once

more into conversation with Aurora before supper. My dapper little knight, said he with a rakish air, I fancy

the poor devils of husbands and lovers will have no reason to hug themselves on your arrival at Salamanca.

You will make their hearts ache for them. As for myself, I tremble for all my snug arrangements. I tell you

what! answered my mistress with congenial spirit, your fears are not without their foundation. Don Felix de

Mendoza is rather formidable, so take care what you are about. This is not my first visit in this country, the

ladies hereabouts, to my knowledge, are made of penetrable materials. About a month ago my way happened

to lie through this city. I halted for eight days, and you are to know . . . . but you must not mention it . . . . that

It was evident enough that Don Lewis was disturbed by this declaration. Might one without impropriety,

replied he, just ask the lady's name? What do you mean by impropriety? exclaimed the pretended Don Felix.

Why make any secret about such a matter as that? Do you think me more of a Joseph than other young

noblemen of my standing? Have a better opinion of my spirit. Besides, the object, between ourselves, is

unworthy of any great reserve, she is but a little mushroom of the lower ranks. A man of fashion never

quarrels with his conscience about such obscure gallantries, and even thinks it an honour conferred on a

tradesman's wife or daughter when he leaves her without any. I shall therefore acquaint you in plain terms,

that the name of the doctor's daughter is Isabella. And the doctor himself, interrupted Pacheco impatiently. he

possibly may be Signor Marcia de la Liana? Precisely so, replied my mistress. Here is a letter sent me just

now. Read it, and then you will see how deeply your humble servant has dipped into her good graces. Don

Lewis just cast his eye upon the note, and recognizing the handwriting, was struck dumb with astonishment

and vexation. What is the matter? cried Aurora, with an air of surprise, keeping up the spirit of her assumed

character. You change colour! God forgive me, but you are a party concerned in this young lady. Ah! Plague

take my officious tongue for having opened my affairs to you with so much frankness.

I am very much obliged to you for it for my own part, said Don Lewis in a transport made up of spite and

rage. Traitress! Jilt! My dear Don Felix, how shall I ever requite you! You have restored me to my senses

when they were just on the wing for an eternal flight. I was tickling myself into a fool's paradise of credulous

love. But love is too cold a term to express my extravagancies. I fancied myself adored by Isabella. The

creature had wormed her self into my heart by feigning to give me her own. But now I know her clearly for a

coquette, and as such despise her as she deserves. Your feelings on the occasion do you infinite credit, said

Aurora, testifying a friendly sympathy in his resentment. A plodding pettifogger's worthless brood might

have gorged to surfeit on the love of a young nobleman so captivating as yourself. Her fickleness is

inexcusable. So far from taking her sacrifice of you in good part, it is my determination to punish her by the

keenest contempt. As for me, rejoined Pacheco, I shall never set eyes on her again; and if that is not revenge,

the devil is in it. You are in the right, exclaimed our masquerading Mendoza. At the same time, that she may

fully understand how ineffably we both disdain her, I vote for sitting down, each of us, and writing her a

sarcastic farewell. They shall be enclosed in one cover, and serve as an answer to her own letter. But do not

let us proceed to this extremity till you have examined your heart; it may be you will repent hereafter of

having broken off with Isabella. No, no, interrupted Don Lewis, I am not such a fool as that comes to; let it be

I immediately sent for pen, ink, and paper, when they sat themselves down at opposite corners of the table,

and drew up a most tender bill of indictment against Doctor Murcia de la Llana's daughter. Pacheco, in

particular, was at a loss for language forcible enough to convey his sentiments in all their acrimony; away

went exordium after exordium, to the tearing and maiming of five or six fair sheets, before the words looked

crooked enough to please his jealous eyes. At length, however, he produced an epistle which came up with

his most tragical conceptions. It ran thus "Selfknowledge is a leading branch of wisdom, my little

philosopher. As a candidate for a professor's chair, lay aside the vanity of fancying yourself amiable. It

requires merit of a far different compass to fix my affections. You have not enough of the woman about you

to afford me even a temporary amusement. Yet do not despair, you have a sphere of your own, the beggarly

servitors in our university have a keen appetite, but no very distinguishing palate." So much for this elegant

epistle! When Aurora had finished hers, which rang the changes on similar topics, she sealed them, wrapped

them up together, and giving me the packet There, Gil Blas, said she, take care that comes to Isabella's

hands this very evening. You comprehend me! added she, with a glance from the corner of her eye, which

admitted of no doubtful construction. Yes, my lord, answered I, your commands shall be executed to a tittle.

I lost no time in taking my departure; no sooner in the street than I said to myself So ho! Master Gil Blas,

your part then is that of the intriguing footman in this comedy. Well! so be it, my friend! shew that you have

wit and sense enough to top it over the favourite actor of the day. Signor Don Felix thinks a wink as good as a

nod. A high compliment to the quickness of your apprehension! Is he then in an error? No. His hint is as clear

as daylight. Don Lewis's letter is to drop its companion by the way. A lucid exposition of a dark hieroglyphic,

enough to shame the dulness of the commentators. The sacredness of a seal could never stand against this

bright discovery. Out came the single letter of Pacheco, and away went I to hunt after Doctor Murcia's abode.

At the very threshold, whom should I meet but the little page who had been at our lodging. Comrade, said I,

do not you happen to live with the great lawyer's daughter? His answer was in the affirmative. I see by your

countenance, resumed I, that you know the ways of the world. May I beg the favour of you to slip this little

The little page asked me on whose behalf I was a messenger. The name of Don Lewis Pacheco had no sooner

escaped my lips, than he told me Since that is the case, follow me. I have orders to shew you up. Isabella

wants to confer with you. I was introduced at once into a private apartment, where it was not long before the

lady herself made her appearance. The beauty of her face was inexpressibly striking; I do not recollect to

have seen more lovely features. Her manner was somewhat mincing and infantine, yet for all that it had been

thirty good years at least since she had mewled and puked in her nurse's arms. My friend, said she with an

encouraging smile, are you on Don Lewis Pacheco's establishment? I told her I had been in office for these

three weeks. With this I fired off my paper popgun against her peace. She read it over two or three times, but

if she had rubbed her eyes till doomsday she would have seen no clearer. In point of fact, nothing could be

more unexpected than so cavalier an answer. Up went her eyes towards the heavens, appealing to their rival

luminaries. The ivory fences* of her pretty mouth committed alternate trespass on her soft and suffering lips;

and her whole physiognomy bore witness to the pangs of her distressed and disappointed heart. Then coming

to herself a little, and recovering her speech My friend, said she, has Don Lewis taken leave of his senses?

Tell me, if you can, his motive for so heroic an epistle. If he is tired of me, well and good, but he might have

Madam, said I, my master most assuredly has not acted as I should have acted in his place. But he has in

some sort been compelled to do as he has done. If you would give me your word to keep the secret, I could

unravel the whole mystery. You have it at once, interrupted she with eagerness; depend on it you shall be

brought into no scrape by me, therefore explain yourself without reserve. Well, then! replied I, the fact is,

without paraphrase, circumlocution, loss of time, or perplexity of understanding, as I shall distinctly state in

two short words Not half a minute after the receipt of your letter, there came into our house a lady, under

a veil as impenetrable as her purpose was dark. She inquired for Signor Pacheco, and talked with him in

private for some time. At the close of the conversation, I overheard her saying You swear to me never to

see her more; but we must not stop there, to set my heart completely at rest you must instantly write her a

farewell letter of my dictating. You know my terms. Don Lewis did as she desired, then giving the result into

my custody Acquaint yourself; said he, where Doctor Murcia de la Liana lives, and contrive to administer

You see plainly, madam, pursued I, that this uncivil epistle is a rival's handiwork, and that consequently my

master is not so much to blame as he appears. Oh, heaven! exclaimed she, he is more so than I was aware of.

His words might have been the error of his hand, but his infidelity is the offence of his heart. Faithless man!

Now he is held by other ties . . . . But, added she, assuming an air of disdain, let him devote himself

unconstrained to his new passion; I shall never cross him. Tell him, however, that he need not have insulted

me. I should have left the course open to my rival, without his warning me from the field: for so fickle a lover

has not soul enough about him to pay for the degradation of soliciting his return. With this sentiment she gave

My exit was conducted entirely to my own satisfaction, for I conceived that with due cultivation of my talent

I might in time become a consummate hypocrite and most successful cheat. I returned home on the strength

of it, where I found my worthy masters, Mendoza and Pacheco, supping together, and rattling away as if they

had been playfellows from their cradles. Aurora saw at once, by myselfsufficient air, that her commission

had not been neglected in my hands. Here you are again then, Gil Blas, said she, give us an account of your

embassy. Wit and invention was all I had to trust to, so I told them I had delivered the packet into Isabella's

own hands; who, after having glanced over the contents of the two letters, so far from seeming disconcerted,

burst into a fit of laughter, as if she had been mad, and said Upon my word, our young men of fashion

write in a pretty style. It must be owned they are much more entertaining than scribes of plebeian rank. It was

a very good way of getting out of the scrape, exclaimed my mistress, she must be an arrant coquette. For my

part, said Don Lewis, I cannot trace a feature of Isabella in this conduct. Her character must have been

completely metamorphosed in my absence. She struck me too in a very different light, replied Aurora. It must

be allowed some women can assume all modes and fashions at will. I was once in love with one of that

description, and a fine dance she led me. Gil Blas can tell you the whole story! She had an air of propriety

about her which might have imposed upon a whole synod of old maids. It is true, said I, putting in my oar; it

was a face to play the devil with a sworn bachelor, I could scarcely have been proof against it myself.

The personated Mendoza and Pacheco shouted with laughter at my manner of expressing myself; the one for

the false witness I bore against a culprit of my own creation; the other laughed simply at the phrase in which

my anathema was couched. We wait on talking about the versatility of women, and the verdict, after hearing

the evidence, all on one side, was given against Isabella. A convicted coquette! and sentence passed on her

accordingly. Don Lewis made a fresh vow never to see her more and Don Felix, after his example, swore to

hold her in eternal abhorrence. By dint of these mutual protestations a sort of friendship was established on

the spur of the occasion, and they promised on both sides to keep no secrets from each other. The time

after supper passed in ingratiating intercourse, and the time seemed short till they retired to their separate

apartments. I followed Aurora to hers, where I gave her a faithful account of my conversation with the

Doctor's daughter, not forgetting the most trivial circumstance. She had much ado to help kissing me for joy.

My dear Gil Blas, said she, I am delighted with your spirit. When one has the misfortune to be engaged in a

passion not to be gratified but by stratagems, what an advantage is it to secure on the right side a lad of so

enterprising a genius as yourself. Courage, my friend, we have thrown a rival into the background, whose

presence in the scene might have marred our comedy. So far, all is well. But as lovers are subject to strange

vagaries, it seems to me that we must make short work of it, and bring Aurora de Guzman on the stage

tomorrow. The idea met with my entire approbation; so leaving Signor Don Felix with his page, I withdrew

*Note: "Ivory fences": Should this phrase appear farfetched in the person of Gil Blas, it may be recollected,

that though not much of a student himself, he had waited on students; and might have sucked in, while

standing behind their chairs, along with "fates and destinies, and such old sayings, the sisters three, and such

branches of learning," that exquisitely characteristic Greek metaphor "a hedge of teeth."

THE two new friends met as soon as they came down in the morning. The ceremonies of the day began with

reciprocal embraces, about which it was impossible for Aurora to be squeamish, for then Don Felix must

have dropped the mask altogether. They went out and walked about town arm in arm, attended by Chilindron,

Don Lewis's footman, and myself. We loitered about the gates of the university, looking at some posting bills

and advertisements of new publications. There were a good many people amusing themselves, like us, with

reading over the contents of these placards. Among the rest my eye was caught by a little fellow, who was

giving his opinion very learnedly on the works exposed to sale. I observed him to be heard with profound

attention, and could not help remarking how amply he deserved it in his own opinion. He was evidently a

complete coxcomb, of an arrogant and dictatorial stamp, the common curse of your gentry under size. This

new translation of Horace, said he, announced here to the public in letters of a yard long, is a prose work,

executed by an old college author. The students have taken a great fancy to the book; so as to carry off four

editions. But not a copy has been bought by any man of taste! His criticisms were scarcely more candid on

any of the other books; he mauled them every one without mercy. It was easy enough to see he was an

author! I should not have been sorry to have staid out his harangue, but Don Lewis and Don Felix were not to

be left in the lurch. Now they took as little pleasure in this gentleman's remarks as they felt interest in the

books which he was Scaligerising, so that they took a quiet leave of him and the university.

We returned home at dinnertime. My mistress sat down at table with Pacheco, and dexterously turned the

conversation on her private concerns. My father, said she, is a younger branch of the Mendoza family, settled

at Toledo, and my mother is own sister to Donna Kimena de Guzman, who came to Salamanca some days

ago on an affair of business, with her niece Aurora, only daughter of Don Vincent de Guzman, whom

possibly you might be acquainted with. No, answered Don Lewis, but I have often heard of him, as well as of

your cousin Aurora. Is it true what they say of her? Her wit and beauty are reported to be unrivalled. As for

wit, replied Don Felix, she certainly is not wanting, for she has taken great pains to cultivate her mind. But

her beauty is by no means to be boasted of; indeed, we are thought to be very much alike. If that is the case,

exclaimed Pacheco, she cannot be behindhand with her reputation. Your features are regular, your

complexion almost too fine for a man; your cousin must be an absolute enchantress. I should like to see and

converse with her. That you shall, if I have any interest in the family, and this very day too, replied the little

My mistress took the first opportunity of changing the topic, and conversing on indifferent subjects. In the

afternoon, while the two friends were getting ready to go and call on Donna Kimena, I played the scout, and

ran before to prepare the duenna for her visitors. But there was no time to be lost on my return, for Don Felix

was waiting for me to attend Don Lewis and him on their way to his aunt's. No sooner had they stepped over

the threshold than they were encountered by the adroit old lady, making signs to them to walk as softly as

possible. Hush! hush! said she, in a low voice, you will waken my niece. Ever since yesterday she has had a

dreadful headache, but is just now a little better; and the poor girl has been taking a little sleep for the last

quarter of an hour. I am sorry for this unlucky accident, said Mendoza, I was in hopes we should have seen

my cousin. Besides, I meant to have introduced my friend Pacheco. There is no such great hurry on that

account, answered Ortiz with a significant smile, and if that is all, you may defer it till tomorrow. The

gentlemen did not trouble the old lady with a long visit, but took their leave as soon as they decently could.

Don Lewis took us to see a young gentleman of his acquaintance, by name Don Gabriel de Pedros. There we

stayed the remainder of the day, and took our suppers. About two o'clock in the morning we sallied forth on

our return home. We had got about halfway, when we stumbled against something on the ground, and

discovered two men stretched at their length in the street. We concluded they had fallen under the knife of the

assassin, and stopped to assist them, if yet within reach of assistance. As we were looking about to inform

ourselves of their condition, as nearly as the darkness of the night would allow, the patrole came up. The

officer took us at first for the murderers, and ordered his people to surround us; but he mended his opinion of

us on the sound of our voices, and by favour of a dark lantern held up to the faces of Mendoza and Pacheco.

His myrmidons, by his direction, examined the two men, whom our fancies had painted as in the agonies of

death, but it turned out to be a fat licentiate with his servant, both of them overtaken in their cups, and not

dead, but dead drunk. Gentlemen, exclaimed one of the posse, this jolly fellow is an acquaintance of mine.

What! do you not know Signor Guyomer the licentiate, head of our university? With all his imperfections he

is a great character, a man of superior genius. He is as staunch as a hound at a philosophical dispute, and his

words flow like a gutter after a hailstorm. He has but three foibles in which he indulges; intoxication,

litigation, and fornication. He is now returning from supper at his Isabella's, whence, the more is the pity, the

drunk was leading the drunk, and they both fell into the kennel. Before the good licentiate came to the

headship this happened continually. Though manners make the man, honours, you perceive, do not always

mend the manners. We left these drunkards in custody of the patrole, who carried them safe home, and

Don Felix and Don Lewis were stirring about midday. Aurora de Guzman was the first topic of their

conversation. Gil Blas, said my mistress to me, run to my aunt, Donna Kimena, and ask if there is any

admission for Signor Pacheco and me today, we want to see my cousin. Off I went to acquit myself of this

commission, or rather to concert the plan of the campaign with the duenna. We had no sooner laid our heads

together to the purpose intended, than I was once more at the elbow of the false Mendoza. Sir, quoth I, your

cousin Aurora has got about wonderfully. She enjoined me from her own lips to acquaint you, that your visit

could not be otherwise than highly acceptable, and Donna Kimena desired me to assure Signor Pacheco, that

These last words evidently tickled Don Lewis's fancy. My mistress saw that the bait was swallowed, and

prepared herself to haul the prey to shore. Just before dinner, a servant made his appearance from Signora

Kimena, and said to Don Felix My lord, a man from Toledo has been inquiring after you, and has left this

note at your aunt's house. The pretended Mendoza opened it, and read the contents aloud to the following

effect "If your father and family still live in your remembrance, and you wish to hear of their concerns, do

not fail, on the receipt of this, to call at the Black Horse, near the university." I am too much interested, said

he, in these proffered communications, not to satisfy my curiosity at once. Without ceremony, Pacheco, you

must excuse me for the present; if I am not back again here within two hours, you may find your way by

yourself to my aunt's; I will join the party in the evening. You recollect Gil Blas' message from Donna

Kimena, the visit is no more than what will be expected from you. After having thrown out this hint, he left

It can scarcely be necessary to apprize the reader, that instead of marching down to the Black Horse, we filed

off to our other quarters. The moment that we got within doors, Aurora tore off her artificial hair, washed the

charcoal from her eyebrows, resumed her female attire, and shone in all her natural charms, a lovely

darkcomplexioned girl. So complete indeed had been her disguise that Aurora and Don Felix could never

have been suspected of identity. The lady seemed to have the advantage of the gentleman even in stature,

thanks to a good high pair of heels, to which she was not a little indebted. It was her first business to heighten

her personal graces with all the embellishments of art; after which she looked out for Don Lewis, in a state of

agitation, compounded of fear and of hope. One instant she felt confident in her wit and beauty; the next she

anticipated the failure of her attempt. Ortiz, on her part, set her best foot foremost, and was determined to

play up to my mistress. As for me, Pacheco was not to see my knave's face till the last act of the farce, for

which the great actors are always reserved, to unravel the intricacy of the plot; so I went out immediately

In short, the puppetshow was all adjusted against Don Lewis's arrival. He experienced a very gracious

reception from the old lady, in amends for whose tediousness he was blessed with two or three hours of

Aurora's delightful conversation. When they had been together long enough, in popped I, with a message to

the enamoured spark. My lord, my master Don Felix begs you ten thousand pardons, but he cannot have the

pleasure of waiting on you here this evening. He is with three men of Toledo, from whom he cannot possibly

get away. Oh! the wicked little rogue, exclaimed Donna Kimena; as sure as a gun then he is going to make a

night of it. No, madam, replied I, they are deeply engaged in very serious business. He is really distressed that

he cannot pay his respects, and commissioned me to say everything proper to your ladyship and Donna

Aurora. Oh! I will have none of his excuses, pouted out my mistress, he knows very well that I have been

indisposed, and might shew some slight degree of feeling for so near a relation. As a punishment, he shall not

come near me for this fortnight. Nay, madam, interposed Don Lewis, such a sentence is too severe. Don

Felix's fate is but too pitiable, in having been deprived of your society this evening.

They bandied about their fine speeches on these little topics of gallantry for some time, and then Pacheco

withdrew. The lovely Aurora metamorphosed herself in a twinkling, and resumed her swashing outside. The

grass did not grow under her feet while she was running to the other lodging. I have a million of apologies to

make, my dear friend, said she to Don Lewis, for not giving you the meeting at my aunt's; but there was no

getting rid of the tiresome people I was with. However, there is one comfort, you have had so much the more

leisure to look about you, and criticise my cousin's beauty. Well! and how do you like her! She is a most

lovely creature, answered Pacheco. You were in the right to claim a resemblance to her. I never saw more

correspondent features; the very same cast of countenance, the eyes exactly alike, the mouth evidently a

family feature, and the tone of voice scarcely to be distinguished. The likeness, however, goes no further, for

Aurora is taller than you, she is brown and you are fair, you are a jolly fellow, she has a little touch of the

demure; so that you are not altogether the male and female Sosias. As for good sense, continued he, if an

angel from heaven were to whisper wisdom in one ear, and your cousin her mortal chitchat in the other, I

am afraid the angel might whistle for an audience. In a word, Aurora is allaccomplished.

Signor Pacheco uttered these last words with so earnest an expression, that Don Felix said with a smile

My friend, I advise you to stay away from Donna Kimena's, it will be more for your peace of mind. Aurora

I have no need of seeing her again, interrupted he, to become distractedly enamoured of her. I am sorry for

you, replied the pretended Mendoza, for you are not a man to be seriously caught, and my cousin is not to be

made a fool of; take my word for it. She would never encourage a lover whose designs were otherwise than

honourable. Otherwise than honourable! retorted Don Lewis; who could have the audacity to form such on a

lady of her rank and character? As for me, I should esteem myself the happiest of mankind, could she be

Since those are your sentiments, rejoined Don Felix, you may command my services. Yes, I will go heart and

hand with you in the business. All my interest in Aurora shall be yours; and by tomorrow morning I will

commence an attack on my aunt, whose good word has more influence than you may think. Pacheco returned

his thanks with the best air possible to this young gobetween, and we were all agog at the promising

appearance of our stratagem. On the following day we found the means of heightening the dramatic effect by

entangling the plot a little more. My mistress, after having waited on Donna Kimena, as if to speak a good

word in favour of the suitor, came back with the result of the interview. I have spoken to my aunt, said she,

but it was as much as I could do to make her hear your proposal with patience. She was primed and loaded

against you. Some goodnatured friend in the dark has painted you out for a reprobate; but I took your part

with some little quickness, and at length succeeded in vindicating your moral character from the attack it had

This is not all, continued Aurora. You had better enter on the subject with my aunt in my presence, we shall

be able to make something of her between us. Pacheco was all impatience to insinuate himself into the good

graces of Donna Kimena; nor was the opportunity deferred beyond the next morning. Our amphibious

Mendoza escorted him into the presence of Dame Ortiz, where such a conversation passed between the trio as

put fire and tow to the combustible heart of Don Lewis. Kimena, a veteran performer, took the cue of

sympathy at every expression of tenderness, and promised the enamoured youth that it should not be her fault

if his plea with her niece was urged in vain. Pacheco threw himself at the feet of so good an aunt, and thanked

her for all her favours. In this stage of the business Don Felix asked if his cousin was up. No, replied the

Duenna, she is still in bed, and is not likely to be downstairs while you stay; but call again after dinner, and

you shall have a t�te�t�te with her to your heart's content. It is easy to imagine that so coming on a

proposal from the dragon which was to guard this inaccessible treasure, produced its full complement of joy

in the heart of Don Lewis. The remainder of the long morning had nothing to do but to be sworn at! He went

back to his own lodging with Mendoza, who was not a little enraptured to observe, with the scrutinizing eye

of a mistress under the disguise of a friend, all the symptoms of an incurable amorous infirmity.

Their tongues ran on no earthly subject but Aurora. When they had done dinner, Don Felix said to Pacheco

A thought has just struck me. It would not be amiss for me to go to my aunt's a few minutes before you; I

will get to speak to my cousin in private, and pry, if it be possible, into every fold and winding of her heart,

as far as your interests are concerned. Don Lewis just chimed in with this idea, so that he suffered his friend

to set out first, and did not follow him till an hour afterwards. My mistress availed herself so diligently of the

interval, that she was tricked out as a lady from heel to point before the arrival of her lover. I beg pardon . . . .

said the poor abused inamorato, after having paid his compliments to Aurora and the Duenna . . . . I took it

for granted Don Felix would be here. You will see him in a few seconds, answered Donna Kimena, he is

writing in my closet. Pacheco was easily put off with the excuse, and found his time pass cheerfully in

conversation with the ladies. And yet, notwithstanding the presence of all his soul held dear, it seemed very

strange that hour after hour glided away but no Mendoza stepped forth from the closet! He could not help

remarking, that the gentleman's correspondence must be unusually voluminous, when Aurora's features all at

once assumed the broader contour of a laugh, with a delightfully provoking question to Don Lewis Is it

possible that love can be so blind as not to detect the glaring imposition by which it has been deluded? Has

my real self made so faint an impression on your senses, that a flaxen peruke and a pencilled eyebrow could

carry the farce to such a height as this? But the masquerade is over now. Pacheco, continued she, resuming an

air of gravity; you are to learn that Don Felix de Mendoza and Aurora de Guzman are but one and the same

It was not enough to discover to him all the springs and contrivances by which he had been duped; she

confessed the motives of tender partiality that led her to the attempt, and detailed the progress of the plot to

the winding up of the catastrophe. Don Lewis scarcely knew whether to be most astonished or delighted at

the recital; at my mistress's feet he thus uttered the transports of his fond applause Ah! lovely Aurora, can

I believe myself indeed the happy mortal on whom your favours have been so lavished? What can I do to

make you amends for them? My affection, were this life eternal, could scarcely pay the price. These pretty

speeches were followed by a thousand others of the same quality and texture; after which the lovers

descended a little nearer to common sense, and began planning the rational and human means of arriving at

the accomplishment of their wishes. It was resolved that we should set out without loss of time for Madrid,

where marriage was to drop the curtain on the last act of our comedy. This purpose was executed in the spirit

of impatience which conceived it; so that Don Lewis was united to my mistress in a fortnight, and the nuptial

ceremonies were graced with the usual accompaniments of music, feasting, balls, and rejoicings, without

THREE weeks after marriage, my mistress bethought herself of rewarding the services I had rendered her.

She made me a present of a hundred pistoles, telling me at the same time Gil Blas, my good fellow, it is

not that I mean to turn you away, for you have my free leave to stay here as long as you please; but my

husband has an uncle, Don Gonzales Pacheco, who wants you very much for a valetdechambre. I have

given you so excellent a character, that he would let me have no peace till I consented to part with you. He is

a very worthy old nobleman, so that you will be quite in your element in his family.

I thanked Aurora for all her kindness; and, as my occupation was over about her, I so much the more readily

accepted the post that offered, as it was merely a transfer from one branch of the Pachecos to another. One

morning, therefore, I called on the illustrious Don Gonzales with a message from the bride. He ought at least

to have overslept himself; for he was in bed at near noon. When I went into his chamber, a page had just

brought him a basin of soup which he was taking. The dotard cherished his whiskers, or rather tortured them

with curlingpapers; though his eyes were sunk in their sockets, his complexion pale, and his visage

emaciated. This was one of those old codgers who have been a little whimsical or so in their youth, and have

made poor amends for their freedoms by the discretion of their riper age. His reception of me was affable

enough, with an assurance that if my attachment to him kept pace with my fidelity to his niece, my condition

should not be worse than that of my fellows. I promised to place him in my late mistress's shoes, and became

A new firm it undoubtedly was, and heaven knows we had a strange head of the house. The resurrection of

Lazarus was an ordinary event compared to his getting up. Imagine to yourself a long bag of dry bones, a

mere skeleton, a dissection, an anatomy of a man; a study in osteology! As for the legs, three or four pair of

stockings one over the other, had no room to make any figure upon them. In addition to the foregoing, this

mummy before death was asthmatic, and therefore obliged to divide the little breath he had between his

cough and his loquacity. He breakfasted on chocolate. On the strength of that refreshment, he ventured to call

for pen, ink, and paper, and to write a short note, which he sealed and sent to its address by the page who had

administered the broth. But this henceforth will be your office, my good lad, said he, as he turned his haggard

eyes upon me; all my little concerns will be in your hands, and especially those in which Donna Euphrasia

takes an interest. That lady is an enchanting young creature, with whom I am distractedly in love, and by

whom, though I say it who should not say it, I am met with all the mutual ardour of inextinguishable and

Heaven defend us! thought I within myself: good now! if this old antidote to rapture can fancy himself an

object on which the fair should waste their sweets, is it any wonder that among our young folks each fancies

himself the Adonis, for whom every Venus pines? Gil Blas, pursued he with a chuckle, this very day will I

take you to this abode of pleasure; it is my house of call almost every evening for a bit of supper. You will be

quite petrified at her modest appearance, and the rigid propriety of her behaviour. Far from taking after those

little wanton vagrants, who are hey gomad after striplings, and give themselves up to the fascinations of

exterior appearance, she has a proper insight into things, staid, ripe, and judicious: what she wants is the bon�

fide spirit and discretion of a man; a lover who has served an apprenticeship to his trade, in preference to all

the flashy fellows of the modern school. This is but an epitome of the panegyric, which the noble dupe Don

Gonzales pronounced upon his mistress. He burdened himself with the task of proving her a compendium of

all human perfection; but the lecture was little calculated for the conviction of the hearer. I had attended an

experimental course among the actresses; and had always found that the elderly candidates had been plucked

in their amours. Yet, as a matter of courtesy, it was impossible not to put on the semblance of giving implicit

credit to my master's veracity; I even added chivalry to courtesy, and threw down my glove on Euphrasia's

penetration and the correctness of her taste. My impudence went the length of asserting, that it was

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco. 133

impossible for her to have selected a betterprovided crony. The grownup simpleton was not aware that I

was fumigating his nostrils at the expense of his addled brain; on the contrary, he bristled at my praises; so

true is it, that a flatterer may play what game he likes against the pigeons of high life! They let you look over

The old crawler, having scribbled through his billetdoux, restrained the luxuriance of a straggling hair or

two with his tweezers; then bathed his eyes in the nostrum of some perfumer to give them a brilliancy which

their natural gum would have eclipsed. His ears were to be picked and washed, and his hands to be cleansed

from the effects of his other ablutions; and the labours of the toilette were to be closed, by pencilling every

remaining hair in the disforested domain of his whiskers, pericranium, and eyebrows. No old dowager, with a

purse to buy a second husband, ever took more pains to assure herself by the cultivation of her charms, that

the person and not the fortune should be the object of attraction. The assassin stab of time was parried by the

quart and tierce of art. Just as he had done making himself up, in came another old fogram of his

acquaintance, by name the Count of Asumar. This genius made no secret of his grey locks; leant upon a stick,

and seemed to plume himself on his venerable age instead of wishing to appear in the heyday of his prime.

Signor Pacheco, said he as he came in, I am come to take potluck with you today. You are always

welcome, count, rejoined my master. No sooner said than done! they embraced with a thousand grimaces,

took their seats opposite to one another, and began chatting till dinner was served.

Their conversation turned at first upon a bullfeast which had taken place a few days before. They talked

about the cavaliers, and who among them had displayed most dexterity and vigour; whereupon the old count,

like another Nestor, whom present events furnish with a topic of expatiating on the past, said with a

deepdrawn sigh: Alas! where will you meet with men nowadays, fit to hold a candle to my

contemporaries? The public diversions are a mere bauble, to what they were when I was a young man. I could

not help chuckling in my sleeve at my good lord of Asumar's whim; for he did not stop at the handywork of

human invention. Would you believe it? At table, when the fruit was brought in, at the sight of some very

fine peaches, this ungrateful consumer of the earth's produce exclaimed: In my time, the peaches were of a

much larger size than they are now; but nature sinks lower and lower from day to day. If that is the case, said

Don Gonzales with a sneer, Adam's hot house fruit must have been of a most unwieldy circumference.

The Count of Asumar staid till quite evening with my master, who had no sooner got rid of him, than he

sallied forth with me in his train. We went to Euphrasia's, who lived within a stone's throw of our house, and

found her lodged in a style of the first elegance. She was tastefully dressed, and for the youthfulness of her air

might have been taken to be in her teens, though thirty bonny summers at least had poured their harvests in

her lap. She had often been reckoned pretty, and her wit was exquisite. Neither was she one of your

brazenfaced jilts, with nothing but flimsy balderdash in their talk, and a libertine forwardness in their

manners: here was modesty of carriage as well as propriety of discourse; and she threw out her little sallies in

the most exquisite manner, without seeming to aspire beyond natural good sense. Oh heaven! said I, is it

possible that a creature of so virtuous a stamp by nature should have abandoned herself to vicious courses for

a livelihood? I had taken it for granted, that all women of light character carried the mark of the beast upon

their foreheads. It was a surprise therefore to see such apparent rectitude of conduct; neither did it occur to

me that these hacks for all customers could go at any pace, and assume the polish of wellbred society, to

impose upon their cullies of the higher ranks. What if a lively petulance should be the order of the day? they

are lively and petulant. Should modesty take its turn in the round of fashion, nothing can exceed their

outward show of prudent and delicate reserve. They play the comedy of love in many masks; and are the

prude, the coquette, or the virago, as they fall in with the quiz, the coxcomb, or the bully.

Don Gonzales was a gentleman and a man of taste; he could not stomach those beauties who call a spade a

spade. Such were not for his market; the rites of Venus must be consummated in the temple of Vesta.

Euphrasia had got up her part accordingly, and proved by her performance that there is no comedy like that of

real life. I left my master, like another Numa with his Egeria, and went down into a hall, where whom should

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco. 134

fortune throw in my way but an old abigail, whom I had formerly known as maidofall work to an actress?

The recognition was mutual. So! well met once more, Signor Gil Blas, said she. Then you have turned off

Arsenia, just as I have parted with Constance. Yes, truly, answered I, it is a long while ago since I went away,

and exchanged her service for that of a very different lady. Neither the theatre nor the people about it are to

my taste. I gave myself my own discharge, without condescending to the slightest explanation with Arsenia.

You were perfectly in the right, replied the newfound abigail, called Beatrice. That was pretty much my

method of proceeding with Constance. One morning early, I gave in my accounts with a very sulky air; she

took them from me in moody silence, and we parted in a sort of wellbred dudgeon.

I am quite delighted, said I, that we have met again, where we need not be ashamed of our employers. Donna

Euphrasia looks for all the world like a woman of fashion, and I am much deceived if she has not reputation

too. You are too clearsighted to be deceived, answered the old appendage to sin. She is of a good family;

and as for her temper, I can assure you it is unparalleled for evenness and sweetness. None of your termagant

mistresses, never to be pleased, but always grumbling and scolding about everything, making the house ring

with their clack, and fretting poor servants to a thread, whose places, in short, are a hell upon earth! I have not

in all this time heard her raise her voice on any occasion whatever. When things happen not to be done

exactly in her way, she sets them to rights without any anger, nor does any of that bad language escape her

lips, of which some highspirited ladies are so liberal. My master, too, rejoined I, is very mild in his

disposition; the very milk of human kindness; and in this respect we are, between ourselves, much better off

than when we lived among the actresses. A thousand times better, replied Beatrice; my life used to be all

bustle and distraction; but this place is an actual hermitage. Not a creature darkens our doors but this

excellent Don Gonzales. You will be my only helpmate in my solitude, and my lot is but too greatly blessed.

For this long time have I cherished an affection for you: and many a time and oft have I begrudged that Laura

the felicity of engrossing you for her sweetheart; but in the end I hope to be even with her. If I cannot boast of

youth and beauty like hers, to balance the account, I detest coquetry, and have all the constancy as well as

As honest Beatrice was one of those ladies who are obliged to hawk their wares, and cheapen themselves for

want of cheapeners in the market, I was happily shielded from any temptation to break the commandments.

Nevertheless, it might not have been prudent to let her see in what contempt her charms were held; for which

reason I forced my natural politeness so far, as to talk to her in a style not to cut off all hope of my more

serious advances. I flattered myself then, that I had found favour in the eyes of an old dresser to the stage: but

pride was destined to have a fall, even on so humble an occasion. The domestic trickster did not sharpen her

allurements, from any longing for my pretty person; her design in subduing me to the little soft god was to

enlist me for the purposes of her mistress, to whom she had sworn so passive an obedience, that she would

have sold her eternal self to the old chapman, who first set up the trade of sin, rather than have disappointed

her slightest wishes. My vain conceit was sufficiently evident on the very next morning, when I carried an

Ovidian letter from my master to Euphrasia. The lady gave me an affable reception, and made a thousand

pretty speeches, echoed from the practised lips of her chambermaid. The expression of my countenance was

peculiarly interesting to the one: but that within which passeth shew was the flattering theme of the other.

According to their account, the fortunate Don Gonzales had picked up a treasure. In short, my praises ran so

high, that I began to think worse of myself than I had ever done in the whole course of my life. Their motive

was sufficiently obvious; but I was determined to play at diamond cut diamond. The simper of a simpleton is

no bad countermine to the attack of a sharper. These ladies under favour were of the latter description, and

Hark you, Gil Blas, said Euphrasia, fortune declares in your favour if you do not balk her. Let us put our

heads together, my good friend. Don Gonzales is old, and a good deal shaken in constitution; so that a very

little fever, in the hands of a very great doctor, would carry him to a better place. Let us take time by the

forelock, and ply our arts so busily as to secure to me the largest slice of his effects. If I prosper, you shall not

starve, I promise you; and my bare word is a better security than all the deeds and conveyances of all the

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco. 135

lawyers in Madrid. Madam, answered I, you have but to command me. Give me my commission on your

musterroll, and you shall have no reason to complain either of my cowardice or contumacy. So be it, then,

replied she. You must watch your master, and bring me an account of all his comings and goings. When you

are chatting together in his more familiar moments, never fail to lead the conversation on the subject of our

sex; and then by an artful, but seemingly natural transition, take occasion to say all the good you can invent

of me. Ring Euphrasia in his ears till all the house re echoes. I would counsel you besides to keep a wary

eye on all that passes in the Pacheco family. If you catch any relation of Don Gonzales sneaking about him,

with a design on the inheritance, bring me word instantly: that is all you have to do, and trust me for sinking,

burning, and destroying him in less than no time. I have ferreted out the weak side of all your master's

relations long ago; they are each of them to be made ridiculous in some shape or other; so that the nephews

and cousins, after sitting to me for their portraits, are already turned with their faces to the wall.

It was evident by these instructions, with many more to the same time and tune, that Euphrasia was one of

those ladies whose partialities all lean to the side of elderly inamoratos, with more money than wit. Not long

before, Don Gonzales, who could refuse nothing to the tender passion, had sold an estate; and she pocketed

the cash. Not a day passed, but she got some little personal remembrance out of him; and besides all this, a

corner of his will was the ultimate object of her speculation. I affected to engage hand over head in their

infamous plot; and if I must confess all without mental reservation, it was almost a moot point, on my return

home, on which side of the cause I should take a brief. There was on either a profitable alternative; whether

to join in fleecing my master, or to merit his gratitude by rescuing him from the plunderers. Con science,

however, seemed to have some little concern in the determination; it was quite ridiculous to choose the

bypath of villany when there was a better toll to be taken on the highway of honesty. Besides, Euphrasia had

dealt too much in generals; an arithmetical definition of so much for so much has more meaning in it than "all

the wealth of the Indies;" and to this shrewd reflection, perhaps, was owing my uncorrupted probity. Thus did

I resolve to signalize my zeal in the service of Don Gonzales, in the persuasion that if I was lucky enough to

disgust the worshipper by befouling his idol, it would turn to very good account. On a statement of debtor

and creditor between the right and the wrong side of the action, the money balance was visibly in favour of

If vice so often assumes the semblance of its contrary, why should not hypocrisy now and then change sides

for variety? I held myself up to Euphrasia for a thorough swindler. She was dupe enough to believe that I was

incessantly talking of her to my master; and thereupon I wove a tissue of frippery and falsehood, which

imposed on her for sterling truth. She had so completely given herself up to my insinuations, as to believe me

her convert, her disciple, her confederate. The better still to carry on this fraud upon fraud, I affected to

languish for Beatrice; and she, in ecstacy at her age to see a young fellow at her skirts, did not much trouble

herself about my sincerity, if I did but play my part with vigour and address. When we were in the presence

of our princesses, my master in the parlour and myself in the kitchen, the effect was that of two different

pictures, but of the same school. Don Gonzales, dry as touchwood, with all its inflammability, and nothing

but its smother, seemed a fitter subject for extreme unction than for amorous parley; while my little pet, in

proportion to the violence of my flame, niggled, nudged, toyed, and romped, like a schoolgirl in vacation;

and no wonder she knew her lesson so pat, for the old coquette had been upwards of forty years in the form.

She had finished her studies under certain professors of gallantry, whose art of pleasing becomes the more

critical by practice; till they die under the accumulated experience of two or three generations.

It was not enough for me to go every evening with my master to Euphrasia's: it was sometimes my lounge

even in daytime. But let me pop my head in at what hour I would, that forbidden creature man was never

there, nor even a woman of any description, that might not be just as easily expressed as understood. There

was not the least loophole for a paramour! a circumstance not a little perplexing to one who could not

readily believe, that so pretty a bale of goods could submit to a strict monopoly, by such a dealer as Don

Gonzales. This opinion undoubtedly was formed on a near acquaintance with female nature, as will be

apparent in the sequel; for the fair Euphrasia, while waiting for my master's translation, fortified herself with

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco. 136

patience in the arms of a lover, with some little fellowfeeling for the frailties of her age.

One morning I was carrying, according to custom, a note to this peerless pattern of perfection. There certainly

were, or I was not standing in the room, the feet of a man ensconced behind the tapestry. Out slunk I, just as

if I had no eyes in my head; yet, though such a discovery was nothing but what might have been expected,

neither was the piper to be paid out of my pocket, my feelings were a good deal staggered at the breach of

faith. Ah! traitress, exclaimed I with virtuous indignation, abandoned Euphrasia! Not satisfied to humbug a

silly old gentleman with a tale of love, you share his property in your person with another, and add profligacy

to dissimulation! But to be sure, on after thoughts, I was but a greenhorn, when I took on so for such a

trivial occurrence! It was rather a subject for mirth than for moral reflection, and perfectly justified by the

way of the world; the languid, embargoed commerce of my master's amorous moments had need be flipped

by a trade in some more merchantable wares. At all events it would have been better to have held my tongue,

than to have laid hold on such an opportunity of playing the faithful servant. But instead of tempering my

zeal with discretion, nothing would serve the turn but taking up the wrongs of Don Gonzales in the spirit of

chivalry. On this high principle, I made a circumstantial report of what I had seen, with the addition of the

attempt made by Euphrasia to seduce me from my good faith. I gave it in her own words without the least

reserve, and put him in the way of knowing all that was to be known of his mistress. He was struck all in a

heap by my intelligence, and a faint flash of indignation on his faded cheek seemed to give security, that the

lady's infidelity would not go unpunished. Enough, Gil Blas, said he, I am infinitely obliged by your

attachment to my service, and your probity is very acceptable to me. I will go to Euphrasia this very moment.

I will overwhelm her with reproaches, and break at once with the ungrateful creature. With these words, he

actually bent his way to the subject of his anger; and dispensed with my attendance, from the kind motive of

sparing me the awkwardness which my presence during their explanation would have occasioned to my

I longed for my master's return with all the impatience of an interested person. There could not be a doubt but

that with his strong grounds of complaint, he would return completely disentangled from the snares of his

nymph. In this thought I extolled and magnified myself for my good deed. What could be more flattering than

the thanks of the kindred who were naturally to inherit after Don Gonzales, when they should be informed

that their relative was no longer the puppet of a figuredance so hostile to their interests? It was not to be

supposed but that such a friend would be remembered, and that my merits would at last be distinguished from

those of other servingmen, who are usually more disposed to encourage their masters in licentiousness, than

to draw them off to habits of decency. I was always of an aspiring temper, and thought to have passed for the

Joseph or the Scipio of the servants' hall; but so fascinating an idea was only to be indulged for an hour or

two. The founder of my fortunes came home. My friend, said he, I have had a very sharp brush with

Euphrasia. She insists on it that you have trumped up a cockandbull story. If their word is to be taken, you

are no better than an impostor, a hireling in the pay of my nephews, for whose sake you have set all your wits

at work to bring about a quarrel between her and me. I have seen the real tears, made of water, run down in

floods from her poor dear eyes. She has vowed to me as solemnly as if I had been her confessor, that she

never made any overtures to you in her life, and that she does not know what man is. Beatrice, who seems a

simple, innocent sort of girl, is exactly in the same story, so that I could not but believe them and be pacified,

How then, sir? interrupted I, in accents of undissembled sorrow, do you question my sincerity? Do you

distrust . . . . No, my good lad, interrupted he again in his turn, I will do you ample justice. I do not suspect

you of being in league with my nephews. I am satisfied that all you have done has been for my good, and

own myself much obliged to you for it; but appearances are apt to mislead, so that perhaps you did not see in

reality what you took it into your head that you saw; and in that case, only consider yourself how offensive

your charge must be to Euphrasia. Yet let that be as it will, she is a creature whom I cannot help loving in

spite of my senses; so that the sacrifice she demands must be made, and that sacrifice is no less than your

dismission. I lament it very much, my poor dear Gil Blas, and if that will be any satisfaction to you, my

CH. VII Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco. 137

consent was wrung from me most unwillingly; but there was no saying nay. With one thing, however, you

may comfort yourself, you shall not be sent away with empty pockets. Nay, more, I mean to turn you over to

I was not a little mortified to find all my noble acts and motives end in my own confusion. I gave a

lefthanded blessing to Euphrasia, and wept over the weakness of Don Gonzales, to be so foolishly infatuated

by her. The kind hearted old gentleman felt within himself that in turning me adrift at the peremptory demand

of his mistress, he was not performing the most manly action of his life. For this reason, as a setoff against

his henpecked cowardice, and that I might the more easily swallow this bitter dose, he gave me fifty ducats,

and took me with him next morning to the Marchioness of Chaves, telling that lady before my face, that I was

a young man of unexceptionably good character, and very high in his good graces, but that as certain family

reasons prevented him from continuing me on his own establishment, he should esteem it as a favour if she

would take me on hers. After such an introduction, I was retained at once as her appendage, and found

THE Marchioness of Chaves was a widow of fiveandthirty, tall, handsome, and wellproportioned. She

enjoyed an income of ten thousand ducats, without the incumbrance of a nursery. I never met with a lady of

fewer words, nor one of a more solemn aspect. Yet this exterior did not prevent her from being set up as the

cleverest woman in all Madrid. Her great assemblies, attended by people of the first quality, and by men of

letters who made a coffee house of her apartments, contributed perhaps more than anything she said to give

her the reputation she had acquired. But this is a point on which it is not my province to decide. I have only to

relate, as her historian, that her name carried with it the idea of superior genius, and that her house was called,

to distinguish it from the ordinary societies in town, The Fashionable Institution for Literature, Taste, and

In point of fact, not a day passed, but there were readings there, sometimes of dramatic pieces, and sometimes

in other branches of poetry. But the subjects were always selected from the graver muses; wit and humour

were held in the most sovereign contempt. Comedy, however spirited; a novel, however pointed in its satire

or ingenious in its fable, such light productions as these were treated as weak efforts of the brain without the

slightest claim to patronage; whereas on the contrary the most microscopical work in the serious style,

whether ode, pastoral, or sonnet, was trumpeted to the skies as the most illustrious effort of a learned and

poetical age. It not unfrequently fell out, that the public reversed the decrees of this chancery for genius: nay,

they had sometimes the gross illbreeding to hiss the very pieces which had been sanctioned by this court of

I was chief manager of the establishment, and my office consisted in getting the drawingroom ready to

receive the company, in setting the chairs in order for the gentlemen, and the sofas for the ladies: after which

I took my station on the landingplace to bawl out the names of the visitors as they came up stairs, and usher

them into the circle. The first day, an old piece of family furniture, who was stationed by my side in the

antechamber, gave me their description with some humour, after I had shown them into the room. His name

was Andrew Molina. He had a good deal of mother's wit, with a flowing vein of satire, much gravity of

sarcasm, and a happy knack at hitting off characters. The first corner was a bishop. I roared out his lordship's

name, and as soon as he was gone in, my nomenclator told me That prelate is a very curious gentleman.

He has some little influence at court; but wants to persuade the world that he has a great deal. He presses his

service on every soul he comes near, and then leaves them completely in the lurch. One day he met with a

gentleman in the presencechamber who bowed to him. He laid hold of him, and squeezing his hand, assured

him, with an inundation of civilities, that he was altogether devoted to his lordship. For goodness' sake, do

CH. VIII. The Marchioness of Chaves: her character, and that of her company. 138

not spare me; I shall not die in my bed without having first found an opportunity of making you my debtor.

The gentleman returned his thanks with all becoming expressions of gratitude, and when they were at some

distance from one another, the obsequious churchman said to one of his attendants in waiting I ought to

know that man; I have some floating, indistinct idea of having seen him somewhere.

Next after the bishop, came the son of a grandee. When I had introduced him into my lady's room This

nobleman, said Molina, is also an original in his way. You are to take notice that he often pays a visit, for the

express purpose of talking over some urgent business with the friend on whom he calls, and goes away again

without once thinking on the topic he came solely to discuss. But, added my showman on the sight of two

ladies, here are Donna Angela de Penafiel and Donna Margaretta de Montalvan. This pair have not a feature

of resemblance to each other. Donna Margaretta prides herself on her philosophical acquirements; she will

hold her head as high as the most learned head among the doctors of Salamanca, nor will the wisdom of her

conceit ever give up the point to the best reasons they can render. As for Donna Angela, she does not affect

the learned lady, though she has taken no unsuccessful pains in the improvement of her mind. Her manner of

talking is rational and proper, her ideas are novel and ingenious, expressed in polite, significant, and natural

terms. This latter portrait is delightful, said I to Molina; but the other, in my opinion, is scarcely to be

tolerated in the softer sex. Not over bearable indeed! replied he with a sneer: even in men it does but expose

them to the lash of satire. The good marchioness herself, our honoured lady, continued he, she too has a sort

of a philosophical looseness. There will be fine chopping of logic there today! God grant the mysteries of

As he was finishing this last sentence, in came a withered bit of mortality, with a grave and crabbed look. My

companion shewed him no mercy. This fellow, said he, is one of those pompous, unbending spirits who think

to pass for men of profound genius, under favour of a few commonplaces extracted out of Seneca; yet they

are but shallow coxcombs when one comes to examine them narrowly. Then followed in the train a spruce

figure, with tolerable person and address, to say nothing of a troubled air and manner, which always supposes

a plentiful stock of self sufficiency. I inquired who this was. A dramatic poet! said Molina. He has

manufactured an hundred thousand verses in his time, which never brought him in the value of a groat; but as

a setoff against his metrical failure, he has feathered his nest very warmly by six lines of humble prose: you

And so I did; but a confounded noise upon the staircase put verse and prose completely out of my head. Good

again! exclaimed my informer: here is the licentiate Campanario. He is his own harbinger before ever he

makes his appearance. He sets out from the very street door in a continued volley of conversation, and you

hear how the alarm is kept up till he makes his retreat. In good sooth, the vaulted roof reechoed with the

organ of the thundering licentiate, who at length exhibited the case in which the pipes were contained. He

brought a bachelor of his acquaintance by way of accompaniment, and there was not a sotto voce passage

during the whole visit. Signor Campanario, said I to Molina, is to all appearance a man of very fine

conversation. Yes, replied my sage instructor, the gentleman has his lucky hits, and a sort of quaintness that

might pass for humour; he does very well in a mixed company. But the worst of it is, that incessant talking is

one of his most pardonable errors. He is a little too apt to borrow from himself; and as those who are behind

the scenes are not to be dazzled by the tinsel of the propertyman, so we know how to separate a certain

volubility and buffoonery of manner from sterling wit and sense. The greater part of his good things would be

thought very bad ones, if submitted, without their concomitant grimaces, to the ordeal of a jest book.

Other groups passed before us, and Molina touched them with his wand. The marchioness too came in for a

magic rap over the knuckles. Our lady patroness, said he, is better than might be expected for a female

philosopher. She is not dainty in her likings; and bating a whim or two, it is no hard matter to give her

satisfaction, Wits and women of quality seldom approach so near the atmosphere of good sense; and for

passion, she scarcely knows what it is. Play and gallantry are equally in her black books: dear conversation is

her first and sole delight. To lead such a life would be little better than penance to the common run of ladies.

CH. VIII. The Marchioness of Chaves: her character, and that of her company. 139

Molina's character of my mistress established her at once in my good graces. And yet, in the course of a few

days, I could not help suspecting that, though not dainty in her likings, she knew what passion was, and that a

One morning, during the mysteries of the toilette, there presented himself to my notice a little fellow of forty,

forbidding in his aspect, more filthy if possible than Pedro de Moya the bookworm, and verging in no

marketable measure towards deformity. He told me he wanted to speak with my lady marchioness. On whose

business? quoth I. On my own, quoth he, somewhat snappishly. Tell her I am the gentleman; . . . . she will

understand you; . . . . about whom she was talking yesterday with Donna Anna de Velasco. I went before him

into my lady's apartment, and gave in his name. The marchioness all at once shrieked out her satisfaction, and

ordered me to show him in. It was not courtesy enough to point to a chair, and bid him sit down: but the

attendants, forsooth, her own maids about her person were to withdraw, so that the little hunchback, with

better luck than falls to the lot of many a taller man, had the field entirely to himself, as lord paramount. As

for the girls and myself, we could not help tittering a little at this uncouthly concerted duet, which lasted

nearly an hour: when my patroness dismissed his little lordship, with such a profusion of farewells and

Godbewithyou's, as sufficiently evinced her thankfulness for the entertainment she had received.

The conversation had, in fact, been so edifying, that in the afternoon she seized a private opportunity of

whispering in my ear Gil Blas, when the short gentleman comes again, you may shew him up the back

stairs; there is no need of parading him along a line of staring servants. I did as I was ordered. When this

epitome of humanity knocked at the door, and that hour was no further off than the next morning, we

threaded all the bye passages to the place of assignation. I played the same modest part two or three times in

the very innocence of my soul, without the most distant guess that the material system could form any part of

their philosophy. But that houndlike snuff at an ill construction, with which the devil has armed the noses of

the most charitable, put me on the scent of a very whimsical game, and I concluded either that the

marchioness had an odd taste, or that crookback courted her as proxy to a better man.

Faith and troth, thought I, with all the impertinence of a hasty opinion, if my mistress really likes a handsome

fellow behind the curtain, all is well; I forgive her her sins: but if she is stark mad for such a monkey as this,

to say the truth, there will be little mercy for her on male or female tongues. But how foully did I defame my

honoured patroness! The genius of magic had perched herself upon the little conjurer's protuberant shoulder;

and his skill having been puffed off to the marchioness, who was just the right food for such jugglers and

their tricks, she held private conferences with him. Under his tuition she was to command wealth and

treasure, to build castles in the air, to remove from place to place in an instant, to reveal future events, to tell

what is done in far countries, to call the dead out of their graves, and terrify the world with many miracles.

Seriously, and to give him his deserts, the scoundrel lived on the folly of the public; and it has been

confidently asserted, that ladies of fashion have not in all ages and countries been exempt from the credulity

FOR six months I lived with the Marchioness of Chaves, and, as it must be admitted, on the fat of the land.

But fate, who thrusts footmen as well as heroes into the world, with herself tied about their necks, gave me a

jog to be gone, and swore that I should stay no longer in that family or in Madrid. The adfsventure by which

In my mistress's female squad there was a nymph named Portia. To say nothing of her youth and beauty, it

was her meek demeanour and good repute that captivated me, who had yet to learn that none but the brave

deserves the fair. The marchioness's secretary, as proud as a prime minister, and as jealous as the Grand Turk,

CH. IX. An incident that parted Gil Blas and the Marchioness of Chaves. The subsequent destination of the former. 140

was caught in the same trap as myself. No sooner did he cast an unlucky squint at my advances, than, without

waiting to see how Portia might chance to fancy them, he determined pell mell to have a tilt with me. To

forward this ghostly enterprise, he gave me an appointment one morning in a place sadly impervious to all

seasonable interruption. Yet as he was a little gobythe ground, scarcely up to my shoulders, and

apparently of feeble frame, he did not look like a very dangerous antagonist; so away I went with some little

courage to the appointed spot. Thinking to come off with flying colours, I anticipated the effect of my

bravery on the heart of Portia; but as it turned out, I was gathering my laurels before they had budded. The

little secretary, who had been practising for two or three years at the fencingschool, disarmed me like a very

baby, and holding the point of his sword up to my throat, Prepare thyself, said he, to balance thine accounts

with this world, and open a correspondence with the next, or give me thy rascally word to leave the

Marchioness of Chaves this very day, and never more to think of my Portia. I gave him my rascally word, and

was honest enough not to think of breaking it. There was an awkwardness in shewing my face before the

servants of the family, after having been worsted; and especially before the high and mighty princess who

had been the theme of our tournament. I only returned home to get together my baggage and wages, and on

that very day set off towards Toledo, with a purse pretty well lined, and a knapsack at my back with my

wardrobe and moveables. Though my rascally word was not given to abandon the purlieus of Madrid, I

considered it as a matter of delicacy to disappear, at least for a few seasons, My resolution was to make the

tour of Spain, and to halt first at one town and then at another. My ready money, thought I, will carry me a

good way; I shall not call about me very prodigally. When my stock is exhausted, I can but go into service

again. A lad of my versatility will find places in plenty, whenever it may be convenient to look out for them.

It was particularly my wish to see Toledo: and I got thither after three days' journey. My quarters were at a

respectable house of entertainment, where I was taken for a gentleman of some figure, under favour of my

best clothes, in which I did not fail to bedizen myself. With the picktooth carelessness of a lounger, the

affectation of a puppy, and the pertness of a wit, it remained with me to dictate the terms of an arrangement

with some very pretty women who infested that neighbourhood; but, as a hint had been given me that the

pocket was the high road to their good graces, my amorous enthusiasm was a little flattered, and, as it was no

part of my plan to domesticate myself in any one place, after having seen all the lions at Toledo, I started one

morning with the dawn, and took the road to Cuen�a, intending to go to Arragon. On the second day I went

into an inn which std open to receive me by the road side. Just as I was beginning to recruit the carnal

department of my nature, in came a party belonging to the Holy Brotherhood. These gentlemen called for

wine, and set in for a drinking bout. Over their cups they were conning the description of a young man, whom

they had orders to arrest. The spark, said one of them, is not above threeandtwenty: be has long black hair,

I heard their talk without seeming to be a listener; and, in fact, did not trouble my head much about it. They

remained in their quarters, and I pursued my journey. Scarcely had I gone a quarter of a mile, before I met a

young gentleman on horseback, as personable as need be, and mounted as described by the officers. Faith and

truth, thought I within myself, this is the very identical man. Black hair and an aquiline nose! One cannot

help doing a good office when it comes in one's way. Sir, said I, give me leave to ask you whether you have

not some disagreeable business on your hands? The young man, without returning any answer, looked at me

from head to foot, and seemed startled at my question. I assured him it was not wanton curiosity that induced

me to address him. He was satisfied of that when I related all I had heard at the inn. My unknown benefactor,

said he, I will not deny to you that I have reason to believe myself actually the person of whom the officers

are in quest: therefore I shall take another road to avoid them. In my opinion, answered I, it would be better to

look out for a spot where you may be in safety, and under shelter from a storm which is brewing, and will

soon pour down upon our heads. Without loss of time we discovered and made for a row of trees, forming a

natural avenue, which led us to the foot of a mountain, where we found an hermitage.

There was a large and deep grotto which time had worn away into the heart of the rock; and the hand of man

had added a rude front built of pebbles and shellwork, covered all over with turf: The adjacent grounds were

CH. IX. An incident that parted Gil Blas and the Marchioness of Chaves. The subsequent destination of the former. 141

strewed with a thousand sorts of flowers, which scattered their perfume; and one was pleased to see hard by

the grotto, a small fissure in the mountain, whence a spring rippled with a tinkling noise, and poured its

pellucid stream along the meadow. At the entrance of this solitary abode stood a venerable hermit, seemingly

weighed down with years. He supported himself with one hand upon a staff, and held a rosary of large beads

with the other, composed of at least twenty rows. His head was almost lost in a brown woollen cap with long

ears; and his beard, whiter than snow, swept down in aged majesty to his waist. We advanced towards him.

Father, said I, is it your pleasure to allow us shelter from the threatening storm? Come in, my sons, replied

the hermit, after examining me attentively; this hermitage is at your service, to occupy it during pleasure. As

for your horse, added he, pointing to the courtyard of his mansion, he will be very well off there. My

companion disposed of the animal accordingly, and we followed the old man into the grotto.

No sooner had we got in than a heavy rain fell, with a terrific storm of thunder and lightning. The hermit

threw himself upon his knees before a consecrated image, fastened to the wall, and we followed the example

of our host. Our devotions ceased with the subsiding of the storm; but as the rain continued, though with

diminished violence, and night was not far distant, the old man said to us My sons, you had better not

pursue your journey in such weather, unless your affairs are pressing. We answered with one consent, that we

had nothing to hinder us from staying there, but the fear of incommoding him; but that if there was room for

us in the hermitage, we would thank him for a night's lodging. You may have it without inconvenience,

answered the hermit, at least the inconvenience will be all your own. Your accommodation will be rough, and

With this cordial welcome to a homely board, the holy personage seated us at a little table, and set before us a

few vegetables, a crust of bread, and a pitcher of water. My sons, resumed he, you behold my ordinary fare,

but to day I will make a feast in hospitality towards you. So saying, he fetched a little cheese and some nuts,

which he threw down upon the table. The young man, whose appetite was not keen, felt but little tempted by

his entertainment. I perceive, said the hermit to him, that you are accustomed to better tables than mine, or

rather that sensuality has vitiated your natural relish. I have been in the world like you. The utmost ingenuity

of the culinary art, whether to stimulate or soothe the palate, was exerted by turns for my gratification, But

since I have lived in solitude, my taste has recovered its simplicity. Now, vegetables, fruit, and milk, are my

While he was haranguing after this fashion, the young man fell into a deep musing. The hermit was aware of

his inattention. My son, said he, some thing weighs upon your spirits. May we not be informed what disturbs

you? Open your heart to me. Curiosity is not my motive for questioning you, but charity, and a desire to be of

service. I am at a time of life to give advice, and you perhaps are under circumstances to stand in need of it.

Yes, father, replied the gentleman with a sigh, I doubtless do stand in need of it, and will follow yours, since

you are so good as to offer it; I cannot suppose there is any risk in unbosoming myself to a man like you. No,

my son, said the old man, you have nothing to fear, it is under more stately roofs that confidences are

I WILL attempt no disguise from you, my venerable friend, nor from this gentleman who completes my

audience. After the generosity of his conduct towards me, I should be in the wrong to distrust him. You shall

know my misfortunes from their beginning. I am a native of Madrid, and came into the world mysteriously.

An officer of the German guard, Baron Steinbach by name, returning home one evening, espied a bundle of

fair linen at the foot of his staircase. He took it up and carried it to his wife's apartment, where it turned out to

be a newborn infant, wrapped up in very handsome swaddlingclothes, with a note containing an assurance

that it belonged to persons of condition, who would come forward and own it at some future period; and the

further information that it had been baptized by the name of Alphonso. I was that unfortunate stranger in the

world, and this is all that I know about myself. Whether honour or profligacy was the motive of the exposure,

the helpless child was equally the victim; whether my unhappy mother wanted to get rid of me, to conceal an

habitual course of scandalous amours, or whether she had made a single deviation from the path of virtue

with a faithless lover, and had been obliged to protect her fame at the expense of nature and the maternal

However this might be, the Baron and his wife were touched by my destitute condition, and resolved, as they

had no children of their own, to bring me up under the name of Don Alphonso. As I grew in years and stature

their attachment to me strengthened. My manners, genteel before strangers and affectionate towards them,

were the theme of their fondest panegyric. In short, they loved me as if I had been their own. Masters of

every description were provided for me. My education became their leading object; and far from waiting

impatiently till my parents should come forward, they seemed, on the contrary, to wish that my birth might

always remain a mystery. As soon as the Baron thought me old enough to bear arms, he sent me into the

service. With my ensign's commission, a genteel and suitable equipment was provided for me; and, the more

effectually to animate me in the career of glory, my patron pointed out that the path of honour was open to

every adventurer, and that the renown of a warrior would be so much the more creditable to me, as I should

owe it to none but myself. At the same time he laid open to me the circumstances of my birth, which he had

hitherto concealed. As I had passed for his son in Madrid, and had actually thought myself so, it must be

owned that this communication gave me some uneasiness. I could not then, nor can I even now, think of it

without a sense of shame. In proportion as the innate feelings of a gentleman bear testimony to the birth of

one, am I mortified at being rejected and renounced by the unnatural authors of my being.

I went to serve in the Low Countries, but peace was concluded in a short time; and Spain finding herself

without assailants, though not without assassins, I returned to Madrid, where I received fresh marks of

affection from the Baron and his wife. Rather more than two months after my return, a little page came into

my room one morning, and presented me with a note couched nearly in the following terms " I am neither

ugly nor crooked, and yet you often see me at my window without the tribute of a glance. This conduct is

little in unison with the spirit of your physiognomy, and so far stings me to revenge that I will make you love

On the perusal of this epistle, there could be no doubt but it came from a widow, by name Leonora, who lived

opposite our house, and had the character of a very great coquette. Hereupon I examined my little messenger,

who had a mind to be on the reserve at first, but a ducat in hand opened the floodgates of his intelligence. He

even took charge of an answer to his mistress, confessing my guilt, and intimating that its punishment was far

I was not insensible to a conquest even of this kind. For the rest of the day home and my windowseat were

the grand attraction; and the lady seemed to have fallen in love with her windowseat too. I madesignals. She

returned them; and on the very next day sent me word by her little Mercury, that if I would be in the street on

the following night between eleven and twelve, I might converse with her at a window on the ground floor.

Though I did not feel myself very much captivated by so coming on a kind of widow, it was impossible not to

send such an answer as if I was; and a sort of amorous curiosity made me as impatient as if I had really been

in love. In the dusk of the evening, I went sauntering up and down the Prado till the hour of assignation.

Before I could get to my appointment, a man mounted on. a fine horse alighted near me, and coming up with

a peremptory air Sir, said he, are not you the son of Baron Steinbach? I answered in the affirmative. You

are the person then, resumed he, who were to meet Leonora at her window to night? I have seen her letters

and your answers, her page has put them into my hands, and I have followed you this evening from your own

house hither, to let you know you have a rival whose pride is not a little wounded at a competition with

yourself in an affair of the heart. It would be unnecessary to say more. We are in a retired place, let us

therefore draw, unless, to avoid the chastisement in store for you, you will give me your word to break off all

connection with Leonora. Sacrifice in my favour all your hopes and interest, or your life must be the forfeit. It

had been better, said I, to have ensured my generosity by good manners, than to extort my compliance by

menaces. I might have granted to your request what I must refuse to this insolent demand.

Well, then, resumed he, tying up his horse and preparing for the encounter, let us settle our dispute like men.

Little could a person of my condition have stomached the debasement of a request, to a man of your quality.

Nine out of ten in my rank would, under such circumstances, have taken their revenge on terms of less

honour but more safety. I felt myself exasperated at this last insinuation, so that, seeing he had already drawn

his sword, mine did not linger in the scabbard. We fell on one another with so much fury, that the

engagement did not last long. Whether his attack was made with too much heat, or my skill in fencing was

superior, he soon received a mortal wound. He staggered, and dropped dead upon the spot. In such a

situation, having no alternative but an immediate escape, I mounted the horse of my antagonist, and went off

in the direction of Toledo. There was no venturing to return to Baron Steinbach's, since, besides the danger of

the attempt, the narrative of my adventure from my own mouth would only afflict him the more, so that

Chewing the cud of my own melancholy reflection, I travelled onwards the remainder of the night and all the

next morning. But about noon it became necessary to stop, both for the sake of my horse and to avoid the

insupportable fierceness of the midday heat. I staid in a village till sunset, and then, intending to reach

Toledo without drawing bit, went on my way. I had already got two leagues beyond Ilescas, when, about

midnight, a storm like that of to day overtook me as I was jogging along the road. There was a garden wall at

some little distance, and I rode up to it. For want of any more commodious shelter, my horse's station and. my

own were arranged, as comfortably as circumstances would admit, near the door of a summerhouse at the

end of the wall, with a balcony over it. Leaning against the door, I discovered it to be open, owing, as I

thought, to the negligence of the servants. Having dismounted, less from curiosity than for the sake of a better

standing, as the rain had been very troublesome under the balcony, I went into the lower part of the summer

My amusement during the storm was in reconnoitring my quarters; and though I had nothing to form an

opinion by, but the lurid gleams of the lightning, it was very evident that such a house must belong to some

family above the common. I was waiting anxiously till the rain abated, to set forward again on my journey;

but a great light at a distance made me change my purpose. Leaving my horse in the summerhouse, with the

precaution of fastening the door, I made for the light, in the assurance that they were not all gone to bed in the

house, and with the intention of requesting a lodging for the night. After crossing several walks, I came to a

saloon, and here too the door was left open. On my entrance, from the magnificence so handsomely displayed

by the light of a fine crystal lustre, it was easy to conclude that this must be the residence of some illustrious

nobleman. The pavement was of marble, the wainscot richly carved and gilt, the proportions of architecture

tastefully preserved, and the ceiling evidently adorned by the masterpieces of the first artists in fresco. But

what particularly engaged my attention was a great number of busts, and those of Spanish heroes, supported

on jasper pedestals, and ranged round the saloon. There was opportunity enough for examining all this

splendour, since there was not even a foot fall, nor the shadow of any one gliding along the passage, though

my ears and eyes were incessantly on the watch for some inhabitant of this fairy desert.

On one side of the saloon there was a door ajar; by pushing it a little wider open, I discovered a range of

apartments, with a light only in the furthest. What is to be done now? thought I within myself. Shall I go

back, or take the liberty of marching forward, even to that chamber? To be sure, it was obvious that the most

prudent step would be to make good my retreat; but curiosity was not to be repelled, or rather, to speak more

truly, my star was in its ascendant. Advancing boldly from room to room, at length I reached that where the

light was. It was a wax taper on a marble slab, in a magnificent candlestick. The first object that caught my

eye was the gay furniture of this summer abode; but soon afterwards, casting a look towards a bed, of which

the curtains were half undrawn on account of the heat, an object arrested my attention, which engrossed it

with the deepest interest. A young lady, in spite of the thunderclaps which had been pealing round her, was

sleeping there, motionless and undisturbed. I approached her very gently, and by the light of the taper I had

seized, a complexion and features the most dazzling were submitted to my gaze. My spirits were all afloat at

the discovery. A sensation of transport and delight came over me; but however my feelings might harass my

own heart, my conviction of her high birth checked every presumptuous hope, and awe obtained a complete

victory over desire. While I was drinking in floods of adoration at the shrine of her beauty, the goddess of my

You may well suppose her consternation, at seeing a man, an utter stranger, in her bedchamber, and at

midnight. She was terrified at this strange appearance, and uttered a loud shriek. I did my best to restore her

composure, and throwing myself on my knees in the humblest posture, Madam, said I, fear nothing. My

business here is not to hurt you. I was going on, but her alarm was so great that she was incapable of hearing

my excuses. She called her woman with a most vehement importunity, and as she could get no answer, she

threw over her a thin nightgown at the foot of the bed, rushed rapidly out of the room, and darted into the

apartments I had crossed, still calling her female establishment about her, as well as a younger sister whom

she had under her care. I looked for nothing less than a posse of strapping footmen who were likely, without

hearing my defence, to execute summary justice on so audacious a culprit; but by good luck, at least for me,

her cries were to no purpose; they only roused an old domestic, who would have been but a sorry knight had

any ravisher or magician invaded her repose. Nevertheless, assuming somewhat of courage from his

presence, she asked me haughtily who I was, by what inlet and to what purpose I had presumptuously gained

admission into her house. I began then to enter on my exculpation, and had no sooner declared that the open

door of the summerhouse in the garden had invited my entrance, than she exclaimed as if thunderstruck

As she uttered these words, she caught at the wax light on the table; then ran through all the apartments one

after another, without finding either her attendants or her sister. She remarked, too, that all their personals and

wardrobe were carried off. With such a comment on her hasty suspicions, she came up to me and said, in the

hurried accent of suspense and perturbation: Traitor! add not hypocrisy to your other crimes. Chance has not

brought you hither. You are in the train of Don Ferdinand de Leyva, and are an accomplice in his guilt. But

hope not to escape, there are still people enough about me to secure you. Madam, said I, do not confound me

with your enemies. Don Ferdinand de Leyva is a stranger to me; I do not even know who you are. You see

before you an outcast, whom an affair of honour has compelled to fly from Madrid; and I swear by whatever

is most sacred among men, that had not a storm overtaken me, I should never have set my foot over your

threshold. Entertain, then, a more favourable opinion of me. So far from suspecting me for an accomplice in

any plot against you, believe me ready to enlist in your defence, and to revenge your wrongs. These last

words, and still more the sincere tone in which they were delivered, convinced the lady of my innocence, and

she seemed no longer to look on me as her enemy; but if her anger abated it was only that her grief might

sway more absolutely. She began weeping most bitterly. Her tears called forth my sympathy, and my

affliction was scarcely less poignant than her own, though the cause of this contagious sorrow was still to be

ascertained. Yet it was not enough to mingle my tears with hers; in my impatience to become her defender

and avenger, an impulse of terrific fury came over me. Madam, exclaimed I, what outrage have you

sustained? Let me know it, and your injuries are mine. Would you have me hunt out Don Ferdinand, and stab

him to the heart? Only tell me on whom your justice would fall, and they shall suffer. You have only to give

the word. Whatever dangers, whatever certain evils may be attendant on the execution of your orders, the

unknown, whom you thought to be in league with your enemies, will brave them all in your cause.

This enraptured devotion surprised the lady, and stopped the flowing of her tears, Ah! sir, said she, forgive

this suspicion, and attribute it to the blindness of my cruel fate. A nobility of sentiment like this speaks at

once to the heart of Seraphina: and while it undeceives, makes me the less repine at a stranger being witness

of an affront offered to my family. Yes, I own my error, and revolt not, unknown as you are, from your

proffered aid. But the death of Don Ferdinand is not what I require. Well, then, madam, resumed I, of what

nature are the services you would enjoin me? Sir, replied Seraphina, the ground of my complaint is this: Don

Ferdinand de Leyva is enamoured of my sister Julia, whom he met with by accident at Toledo, where we for

the most part reside. Three months since, he asked her in marriage of the Count de Polan, my father, who

refused his consent on account of an old grudge subsisting between the families. My sister is not yet fifteen,

she must have been indiscreet enough to follow the evil counsels of my woman, whom Don Ferdinand has

doubtless bribed; and this daring ruffian, advertised of our being alone at our countryhouse, has taken the

opportunity of carrying off Julia. At least I should like to know what hidingplace he has chosen to deposit

her in, that my father and my brother, who have been these two months at Madrid, may take their measures

accordingly. For heaven's sake, added she, give yourself the trouble of examining the neighbourhood of

Toledo, an act so heinous cannot escape detection, and my family will owe you a debt of ever lasting

The lady was little aware how unseasonable an employment she was thrusting upon me. My escape from

Castile could not be too soon effected; and yet how should such a reflection ever enter into her head, when it

was completely superseded in mine by a more powerful suggestion? Delighted at finding myself important to

the most lovely creature in the universe, I caught at the commission with eagerness, and promised to acquit

myself of it with equal zeal and industry. In fact, I did not wait for daybreak, to go about fulfilling my

engagement. A hasty leave of Seraphina gave me occasion to beg her pardon for the alarm I had caused her,

and to assure her that she should speedily hear some what of my adventure. I went out as I came in, but so

wrapped up in admiration of the lady, that it was palpable I was completely caught. My sense of this truth

was the more confirmed, by the eagerness with which I embarked in by the romantic, gaily coloured

bubbles which my passion blew. It struck my fancy that Seraphina, though engrossed by her affliction, had

remarked the hasty birth of my love, without being displeased at the discovery. I even flattered myself that if

I could furnish her with any certain intelligence of her sister, and the business should terminate in any degree

Don Alphonso broke the thread of his discourse at this passage, and said to our aged host: I beg your pardon,

father, if the fullness of my passion should lead me to dilate too long upon particulars, wearisome and

uninteresting to a stranger. No, my son, replied the hermit, such particulars are not wearisome: I am interested

to know the state and progress of your passion for the young lady you are speaking of; my counsels will be

With my fancy heated by these seductive images, resumed the young man, I was two days hunting after

Julia's ravisher: but in vain were all the inquiries that could be made; by no means I could devise was the

least trace of him to be discovered. Deeply mortified at the unsuccessful issue of my search, I bent my steps

back to Seraphina, whom I pictured to myself as overwhelmed with uneasiness. Yet she was in better spirits

than might have been expected. She informed me that her success had been better than mine; for she had

learned how her sister was disposed of. She had received a letter from Don Ferdinand himself, importing that

after being privately married to Julia, he had placed her in a convent at Toledo. I have sent his letter to my

father, pursued Seraphina. I hope the affair may be adjusted amicably, and that a solemn marriage will soon

extinguish the feuds which have so long kept our respective families at variance.

When the lady had thus informed me of her sister's fate, she began making an apology for the trouble she had

given me, as well as the danger into which she might imprudently have thrown me, by engaging my services

in pursuit of a ravisher, without recollecting what I had told her, that an affair of honour had been the

occasion of my flight. Her excuses were couched in such flattering terms, as to convert her very oversight

into an obligation. As rest was desirable for me after my journey, she conducted me into the saloon, where we

sat down together. She wore an undress gown of white taffety with black stripes, and a little hat of the same

materials with black feathers; which gave me reason to suppose that she might be a widow. But she looked so

If I was all impatient to get at her history, she was not less so to know who I was. She besought me to

acquaint her with my name, not doubting, as she kindly expressed it, by my noble air, and still more by the

generous pity which had made me enter so warmly into her interests, that I belonged to some considerable

family. The question was not a little perplexing. My colour came and went, my agitation was extreme: and I

must own that, with less repugnance to the meanness of a falsehood than to the acknowledgment of a

disgraceful truth, I answered that I was the son of Baron Steinbach, an officer of the German guard. Tell me,

likewise, resumed the lady, why you left Madrid. Before you answer my question, I will insure you all my

father's credit, as well as that of my brother Don Gaspard. It is the least mark of gratitude I can bestow on a

gentleman who, for my service, has neglected the preservation even of his own life. Without further

hesitation, I acquainted her with all the circumstances of my rencounter: she laid the whole blame on my

When I had satisfied her curiosity, it seemed not unreasonable to plead in favour of my own. I inquired

whether she was maid, wife, or widow. It is three years, answered she, since my father made me marry Don

Diego de Lara; and I have been a widow these fifteen months. Madam, said I, by what misfortune were your

wedded joys so soon interrupted? I am going to inform you, sir, resumed the lady, in return for the confidence

Don Diego de Lara was a very elegant and accomplished gentleman: but, though his affection for me was

extreme, and every day was witness to some attempt at giving me pleasure, such as the most impassioned and

most tender lover puts in practice to win the smile of her he loves; though he had a thousand estimable

qualities, my heart was untouched by all his merit. Love is not always the offspring either of assiduity or

desert. Alas! we are often captivated at first sight by we know not whom, nor why, nor how. To love, then,

was not in my power. More disconcerted than gratified by his repeated offices of tenderness, which I received

with a forced courtesy, but without real plea ure, if I accused myself in secret of ingratitude, I still thought

myself an object as much of pity as of censure. To his unhappiness and my own, his delicacy more than kept

pace with his affection. Not an action or a speech of mine, but he unravelled all its hidden motives, and

fathomed all my thoughts, almost before they arose. The inmost recesses of my heart were laid open to his

penetration. He complained without ceasing of my indifference; and esteemed himself only so much the more

unfortunate, in not being able to please me, as he was well assured that no rival stood in his way; for I was

scarcely sixteen years old; and, before he paid his addresses to me, he had tampered with my women, who

had assured him that no one had hitherto attracted my attention. Yes, Seraphina, he would often say, I could

have been contented that you had preferred some other to myself; and that there were no more fatal cause of

your insensibility. My attentions and your own principles would get the better of such a juvenile

prepossession; but I despair of triumphing over your coldness, since your heart is impenetrable to all the love

I have lavished on you. Wearied with the repetition of the same strain, I told him that instead of disturbing his

repose and mine by this excess of delicacy, he would do better in trusting to the effects of time. In fact, at my

age, I could not be expected to enter into the refinements of so sentimental a passion; and Don Diego should

have waited, as I warned him, for a riper period and more staid reflection. But, finding that a whole year had

elapsed, and that he was no forwarder in my favour than on the first day, he lost all patience, or rather, his

brain became distracted. Affecting to have important business at court, he took his leave, and went to serve as

a volunteer in the Low Countries; where he soon found in the chances of war what he went to seek, the

After the lady had finished her recital, her husband's uncommon character became the topic of our discourse.

We were interrupted by the arrival of a courier, charged with a letter for Seraphina from the Count De Polan.

She begged my permission to read it; and as she went on, I observed her to grow pale, and to become

dreadfully agitated. When she had finished, she raised her eyes upward, heaved a long sigh, and her face was

in a moment bathed with her tears. Her sorrow sat heavily on my feelings. My spirits were greatly disturbed;

and, as if it were a forewarning of the blow impending over my head, a deathlike shudder crept through my

frame, and my faculties were all benumbed. Madam, said I, in accents half choked with apprehension, may I

ask of what dire events that letter brings the tidings? Take it, sir, answered Seraphina most dolefully, while

she held out the letter to me. Read for yourself what my father has written. Alas! you are but too deeply

At these words, which made my blood run cold, I took the letter with a trembling hand, and found in it the

following intelligence: "Your brother, Don Gaspard, fought yesterday at the Prado. He received a small

sword wound, of which he died this day: and declared, before he breathed his last, that his antagonist was the

son of Baron Steinbach, an officer of the German guard. As misfortunes never come alone, the murderer has

eluded my vengeance by flight, but wherever he may have concealed himself, no pains shall be spared to hunt

him out. I am going to write to the magistrates all round the country, who will not fail to take him into

custody, if he passes through any one of the towns in their jurisdiction, and by the notices I am going to

circulate, I hope to cut off his retreat in the country or at the seaports. THE COUNT DE POLAN."

Conceive into what a ferment this letter threw all my thoughts. I remained for some moments motionless and

without the power of speech. In the midst of my confusion, I too plainly saw the destructive bearing of Don

Gaspard's death on the passion I had imbibed. My despair was unbounded at the thought. I threw myself at

Seraphina's feet, and offering her my naked sword, Madam, said I, spare the Count de Polan the necessity of

seeking further for a man who might possibly withdraw himself from his resentment. Be yourself the avenger

of your brother: offer up his murderer as the victim of your own hand: now, strike the blow. Let this very

weapon which terminated his life, cut short the sad remnant of his adversary's days. Sir, answered Seraphina,

a little softened by my behaviour, I loved Don Gaspard, so that though you killed him in fair and manly

hostility, and though he brought his death upon himself; you may rest assured that I take up my father's

quarrel. Yes, Don Alphonso, I am your decided enemy, and will do against you all that the ties of blood and

friendship require at my hands. But I will not take advantage of your evil star: in vain has it delivered you

into my grasp: if honour arms me against you, the same sentiment forbids to pursue a cowardly revenge. The

rights of hospitality must be inviolable, and I will not repay such service as you have rendered me with the

treachery of an assassin. Fly! make your escape, if you can, from our pursuit and from the rigour of the laws,

What, then! madam, returned I, when vengeance is in your own hands, do you turn it over to the laws, which

may, perhaps, be too slow for your impatience? Nay! rather stab a wretch who is not worthy of your

forbearance. No, madam, maintain not so noble and so generous a proceeding with one like me. Do you know

who I am? All Madrid takes me for Baron Steinbach's son yet am I nothing better than a foundling, whom

he brought up from charity. I know not even who were guilty of my existence. No matter, interrupted

Seraphina, with precipitation, as if my last words had given her new uneasiness, though you were the lowest

of mankind I would do what honour bids. Well, madam, said I, since a brother's death is insufficient to excite

your thirst after my blood, I will exasperate your hatred still further by a new offence, of which I trust you

will never pardon the boldness. I dote on you: I could not behold your charms without being dazzled by them:

and, in spite of the cloud in which my destiny was enveloped, I had cherished the hope of being united to

you. I was so infatuated by my passion, or rather by my pride, as to flatter myself that heaven, which perhaps

conceals from me my birth in mercy, might discover it one day, and enable me without a blush to acquaint

you with my real name. After this injurious avowal, can you hesitate a moment about punishing me?

This rash declaration, replied the lady, would doubtless prove offensive at any other season; but I forgive it in

consideration of the trouble which bewilders you. Besides, my own condition so engrosses me, as to render

me deaf to any strange ideas that may escape you. Once more, Don Alphonso, added she, shedding tears,

begone far from a house which you have cast into mourning: every moment of your longer stay adds

pungency to my distress. I no longer oppose your will, madam, returned I, preparing to take my leave:

absence from you must then be my portion: but do not suppose that, anxious for the preservation of a life

which is become hateful to you, I go to seek an asylum where I may be sheltered from your search. No, no, I

bare my breast to your resentment. I shall wait with impatience at Toledo for the fate which you design me;

and by surrendering at once to my pursuers, shall myself forward the completion of my miseries.

At the conclusion of this speech I withdrew. My horse was returned to me, and I went to Toledo, where I

abode eight days, and really with so little care to conceal myself that I know not how or why I have escaped

an arrest; for I cannot suppose that the Count de Polan, whose whole soul is set on cutting off my retreat,

should not have been aware that I was likely to pass through Toledo. Yesterday I left that town, where it

should seem as if I was tired of my liberty, and without betaking myself to any fixed course of travelling, I

came to this hermitage, like a man who had no reason to be ashamed of shewing himself. Such, father, was

the cause of my absence and distraction. I beseech you to assist me with your counsels.

WHEN Don Alphonso had concluded the melancholy recital of his misfortunes, the old hermit said to him

My son, you have been excessively rash in tarrying so long at Toledo. I consider in a very different light from

that you affect to place it in, what you have told me of your story; and your love for Seraphina seems to me to

be sheer madness. Take my word for it, you will do well to cancel that young lady from your remembrance;

she never can be of your communion. Retreat like a skilful general, when you cannot act with effect on the

offensive; and pursue your fortune on another field, where success may smile on your endeavours. You will

be terribly out of luck to kill the brother of the next young lady who may chance to succeed this only possible

He was going to add many other inducements to resignation, in such a case as Don Alphonso's, when we saw

another hermit enter our retreat, with a wellstuffed wallet slung across his shoulders. He was on his return,

with the charitable contributions of all the good folks in the town of Cuen�a; and the gathering did credit to

the religion of the age. He looked younger than his companion, in spite of his thick, foxy beard. Welcome

home, brother Anthony, said the elder of the two recluses; what news do you bring us from town? Bad

enough, answered the carroty friar, putting into his hands a paper, folded in the form of a letter; this little

instrument will inform you. The hoary sage opened it, and after reading on with an increased attention, as the

contents seemed to grow more interesting, exclaimed: Heaven's will be done! Since the combustion is

anticipated, we have only to fall in with the humour of our fate. Let us change our dialect, Signor Don

Alphonso! pursued he, addressing his discourse to my young companion: you behold in me a man, like

yourself; who has been a broad mark for the wantonness of fortune to take aim at. Word is sent me from

Cuen�a, a town at the distance of a league hence, that some backbiter has been blackening my fair fame in the

esteem of justice; who is coming with her hue and cry to disturb the repose of these rural scenes, and to lay

her paw upon my person. But an old fox is too cunning to be caught in a trap. This is not the first time that I

have cut and run before the bloodhounds of the law. But, thanks to myself for having my wits about me, I

have always ended the chase in a whole skin, and held myself in readiness for another. It is now time to

assume another form; for, whether you like me best in my old skin or my new, I cast my hermit's decrepit

To suit the action to the word, he threw off the incumbrance of his ecclesiastical petticoat, and stood forth to

view in a doublet of black serge with slashed sleeves. Then off went his cap, and snap went a string, which

supported the hoary honours of a beard, and our anchorite was at once transformed to a brawny ruffian of

eightandtwenty or thirty. Brother Anthony, following a good example, discarded the outward show of

religion, treated his fiery beard as the snowy one had been handled just before, and pulled out of an old

wormeaten trunk a sorry rag of a cassock, with which he invested his person. But what words can express

my surprise, when Signor Don Raphael presented himself to my view, like a phoenix from the ashes of the

old beadcounter! To complete the trick of the pantomime, brother Anthony was turned into my faithful

vassal and trusty squire, Ambrose de Lamela. Here are miracles! exclaimed I in a quandary; as far as I can

perceive, we are all hail fellow well met! You never were more lucky in your life, Signor Gil Blas, said Don

Raphael, with a brazenfaced good humour: you have fallen among old friends when you least expected it. It

CH. XI. The old hermit turns out an extraordinary genius, and Gil Blas finds himself among his former acquaintance. 149

must be owned you have a crow to pluck with us; but let the past be buried in oblivion, and thank heaven,

here we are together again. Ambrose and I will serve under your banner; and let me tell you, you will have

subalterns of no contemptible prowess. You may object to our morals; but they are better in the main than

many a hypocrite's pretensions. We never assassinate, and rarely maltreat: and that in pure self defence. The

only liberty we take with society is to live at free quarters: and though robbery may be considered as

containing some little spice of injustice, the necessity we labour under of committing it restores its

equilibrium to the scale. Even join your fortune with ours: you will lead a life of hazard, but of variety. Our

predatory peregrinations have every pastoral beauty except innocence, and the want of that is more than

counterpoised by subtlety and stratagem. Not but, with all our forecast, a certain mechanical concatenation of

second causes sometimes frustrates our bestconcerted projects, and drags our philosophy through the mire.

But a ducking now and then only makes us swim the better. The seasons must all be taken in their turns; the

Courteous stranger, pursued the pretended hermit, speaking to Don Alphonso, we extend the proposal of

partnership to you, and it may be a question whether you will better yourself by rejecting it, in the lamentable

condition of your affairs; for, to say nothing of the chancemedley for which you are at hide and seek, your

fortune is probably a little out at elbows. Most lamentably so, said Don Alphonso; and hence, since the truth

must out, are my forebodings more dark than even my present evils. That is the very thing! replied Don

Raphael. You were sent by our better genius to join the party. You will find no such good berth in the honest

part of the world. Your wants will all be supplied, and you may laugh at the vigilance of your pursuers. There

is not a corner in all Spain which we have not ferreted out; those who are always on the scamper see a great

deal of the country. We are perfect connoisseurs in landscape, and affect Salvator Rosa's rugged scenery.

There we graze in peace and freedom, secure from the brutality of justice. Don Alphonso expressed himself

very much obliged to them for their kind invitation; and finding neither money in his purse, nor contrivance

to procure it in his pericranium, made up his mind at once not to stand upon punctilio with morality. I too was

led into a looser course than agreed with my rigid principles, by a growing friendship for this young man,

We all four agreed to set off in a body, and never to part company. The question was put whether we should

sound a retreat on the instant, or first give a peremptory summons to a flagon of excellent wine, which

brother Anthony had invested by regular approaches at Cuen�a the day before; but Raphael, a more

experienced general than any of us, represented that the first thing to be done was to render our own camp

impregnable, for which purpose he proposed that we should march all night, to gain a very thick wood

between Villardesa and Almodabar, where we should halt, as in a friendly country, and recruit after the

fatigues of the campaign. These general orders were approved of in council. Our lay hermits then went about

packing up their baggage and provisions, which were swung in two bundles across the back of Don

Alphonso's horse. We were not long in our preparations, after which we sheered off from the hermitage,

leaving a rich booty to legal rapine in the saintly paraphernalia of the two hermits; including a white beard

and a red one, two rickety bedsteads, a table without a leg, a chest without a bottom, two chairs without any

Our march was continued the whole night, and we began to chafe and feel other inconveniences, when at

daybreak we hailed the wood where our toils were to end. Sailors after a long voyage work the ship with

double alacrity at sight of their native land. So it was with us, we pushed forward and got to our journey's end

by sunrise. Dashing into the thickest of the wood, we pitched upon a retired and pleasant spot, where the turf

was circled in by tall and branching oaks, whose gigantic limbs, interwoven over our heads, formed a natural

vault, not to be penetrated even by noonday heat. We took the bridle off the horse to let him feed after he

was unloaded. Then down we sat, pulling out of brother Anthony's wallet some large pieces of bread and

good substantial slices of roast meat, at which we began pegging with all possible pertinacity. Nevertheless,

let our appetites be as obstinate as they might, we every now and then suspended the fray to spar a little with

CH. XI. The old hermit turns out an extraordinary genius, and Gil Blas finds himself among his former acquaintance. 150

About the end of the conflict, Don Raphael said to Don Alphonso My brave comrade, after the

confidence you have reposed in me, it is but fair that in my turn I should recount the history of my life to you

with the same sincerity. You will do me a great favour, answered the young man; and an equal one to me,

chimed in I. My curiosity is all alive to know your adventures, for doubtless they must afford much matter of

useful speculation. You may rest assured of that, replied Don Raphael; and I mean to leave behind me a

history of my own times. The composition shall be the amusement of my old age, for I am as yet in the prime

of life, and mean to furnish in propri� person� many new hints for my commonplacebook. But we are all

weary, let us recruit with some hours of sleep. While we three lie down, Ambrose shall keep watch for fear of

a surprise, and shall then take a nap in his turn. For though, to all appearance, we are here in perfect safety, it

is always good to keep a sentry at the outposts. After this precaution he stretched himself along upon the

grass. Don Alphonso did the same. I followed their example, and Lamela performed the office of a scout.

Don Alphonso, so far from getting any rest, was incessantly brooding over his misfortunes, and I could not

get a wink of sleep. As for Don Raphael, he snored most sonorously. But he awoke in little more than an

hour, when, finding us in a listening mood, he said to Lamela My friend Ambrose, you may now yield to

the gentle influence of Morpheus. No, no, answered Lamela, my sleepy fit is over; and though I know all the

passages of your life by rote, they are so instructive to the practitioners of our art and mystery, that I do not

care how often I hear the tale over again. Without further preface, Don Raphael began the narrative of his

I MADE my entrance on the stage of life at Madrid, where my mother was an actress, famous for dramatic,

and infamous for her intriguing talents. Her name was Lucinda. As for my father, every man must have one;

but my arithmetic is too scanty to determine the number of mine. It might indeed be a matter of history, that

such or such a man of fashion was dangling after my mother at the epoch of my arrival in this system; but

then, that mere fact would by no means warrant a deduction that any individual gallant of the mother must

therefore be the father of the child. A lady, so eminent as she was in so notorious and wholesale a profession,

must have many strings to her bow; where her blandishments are most publicly lavished, her favours are most

sparingly bestowed: there is a show article or two for public exhibition, but her everyday wares are cheap,

There is nothing like taking scandal by the beard, and treating the opinion of the world with heroic

indifference. Lucinda, instead of cooping me up in a garret at home, made no scruple about owning her little

bastard, but took me in her hand to the theatre with a modest assurance, regardless how the tongue of rumour

might babble at her expense, or how the laugh of malice might peal at my unlucky appearance. In short, I was

her pet, and came in for the caresses of all the men who frequented the house. One would have sworn that

nature pleaded in my favour, and inspired each of them with a father's pride in the brat they had clubbed for.

The twelve first years of my life were suffered to waste away in all kinds of frivolous amusements. Scarcely

did they teach me to read and write. Still less was it thought of any consequence to initiate me in the

principles of my religion. To dance, to sing, to play on the guitar, was the sum total of my early attainments.

With these gifts and graces for my only acquisitions, the Marquis of Leganez asked for me to be about his

only son, who was nearly of my own age. Lucinda gave her consent without reluctance, and it was then that I

began to mind a little what I was about. Young Leganez could not reproach me with my ignorance, his little

lordship was not cast in a scientific mould, for he scarcely knew a letter of his alphabet, though he had been

under private tuition for fifteen months. None of his masters could make anything of him, patience was never

formed to engage in so unequal a match. To be sure, they were expressly forbid to exercise any severity on

his noble carcass, their orders were to teach, not to torture him; and this tender precaution, acting on a subject

of insufferably untoward dispositions, was the means of throwing to the dogs all the mental physic they

But the verbgrinder engendered in his noddle a most ingenious device, by which to keep this troublesome

young lordling in awe, without trenching on his foolish father's injunctions. This scheme was no other than to

flog me when ever that scapegrace Leganez had incurred the penalty of the rod, and this vicarious execution

was inflicted with the utmost rigour. My consent to the transfer had never been asked, and there was nothing

in the act itself to recommend it; so that my only chance was to run away, and appeal to my mother against so

arbitrary a discipline. However her maternal feelings might inwardly revolt, no trace of woman's weakness

could be detected in her manner of receiving my complaint. The Leganez connection was too important to be

lost for a few whippings; and away went she, dragging her culprit into the presence of his tormentor, who by

this act of hers became master of broom field. Experience had convinced him that the success of his invention

corresponded with its felicity. He therefore went on improving the mind and manners of the little grandee at

the expense of my skin. Remorse for his delinquencies was to be excited only by sympathy; so that whenever

it became necessary to make a bloody example, my seat of vengeance was firked most unmercifully. The

running account between young Leganez and me was all on one side, and scarcely a day passed but he sinned

on tick and suffered by attorney. By the nearest calculation of whole numbers, there went somewhere about a

hundred cuts to teach him each single letter of the alphabet; so that if you multiply 100 by 24 for stupidity,

and add an 0 to the amount for moral offences, you will have the sum total of the belabouring that his

This thick and threefold companionship with birch was not the only rub; my path through this family was

more beset with thorns than sweetened by flowers. As my birth and connections were no secret, the whole of

the establishment, to the very refuse of the household, the stableboys and scullions, twitted me with my

shameful origin. This stuck so terribly in my throat that I made my escape once more, but not without

borrowing my tutor's ready money, amounting to upwards of a hundred and fifty ducats, for an indefinite

period, and without interest. Thus was the account settled between us, since he had made a property of my

hide for a scarecrow, it was but fair that I should have a finger in the earnings of his arm. For a first attempt at

thieving both the plan and execution were hopeful. A hue and cry was raised for two days, it was hot while it

lasted, but I lay snug, and they missed me. Madrid was no longer a fit hidingplace, so I took to cover in

I was just then entering into my fifteenth year. What a happy fellow, at such an early age, to shape my own

conduct and be in a condition of forming a set of morals for myself! I soon scraped acquaintance with some

pleasant youths, who rescued me from the dominion of prejudice, and shared liberally with me in the sin of

spending what was not my own. By degrees I rose in society and leagued myself with a set of professional

sharpers, who found me so fine a subject to work upon, that a short time, with plenty of practice, put me in

possession of all the most desperate jobs. At the expiration of five years, an itch for travelling laid hold of me.

I therefore took leave of my comrades and got as far as Alcantara, wishing to commence my peregrinations

with the province of Estremadura. In this my first excursion, an opportunity of keeping in my hand occurred;

and I was too diligent a practitioner to let it escape. As I was on foot, and loaded moreover with a pretty

heavy knapsack, I halted from time to time to avail myself of the shade, and recruit a little under the trees

which lined the highway. At one of these baits I picked up two young gentlemen, who were chatting at their

ease upon the grass, and inhaling the freshness of the breeze. My mode of accosting them was suited to the

occasion; nor did its familiarity seem to be taken in ill part. The eldest could not be more than fifteen a

couple of as practicable greenhorns as ever fell into the hands of a man of genius. Courteous stranger, said the

youngest, we are the Sons of two rich citizens at Placentia. Longing extremely to see the kingdom of

Portugal, we have each of us begged a hundred pistoles from our friends, and are setting out to satisfy our

curiosity. Travelling on foot as we do, we shall be able to get a good way with that supply, shall we not?

What do you think of it? If I had as much, answered I, they might take me who could catch me. I would scour

over the four known quarters of the globe, and then set out on new discoveries. Fire and fury! Two hundred

pistoles! Why it is an entail for a dukedom! You ought to lay by out of the interest. If it is agreeable to you,

gentlemen, I will club with you as far as Almeria, whither I am going to take possession of an estate left me

My young cockneys testified at once the pleasure they should derive from my company. Whereupon, when

we were all three a little refreshed, we trudged on towards Alcantara, where we arrived early in the afternoon.

No inn but the best was fit to hold such guests. We asked for a room, and were shown into one where there

was a press with a good strong lock upon it. Supper was ordered without delay; but as some time was

required to get it ready, I proposed to my travelling companions a gentle saunter about the town. The party

seemed perfectly agreeable. We locked up our knapsacks in the press, the key of which one of the citizens put

in his pocket, and out sallied we from the inn. The churches were the best lions we met with in our way; and

while we were gaping about the principal, I pretended to have recollected on a sudden some very urgent

business. Gentlemen, said I to my companions, it has just come across me that a good man of Toledo gave

me a commission to say two words on his behalf to a merchant who lives hard by this church. Have the

goodness to wait for me here, I will be back in a moment. With this excuse, I went off like a shot, in the

direction of our inn. The press was my point of attack I forced the lock, ransacked the baggage of my

young citizens, and laid a sacrilegious hand on their pistoles. Poor youths! How they were to pay their

reckoning, it was not for me to presume even to guess, for most assuredly I stripped them of all the natural

means. After this feat, I decamped as expeditiously as my legs could carry me from the town, and took the

direction of Merida, without caring a curse what became of the young brood I had plucked.

Such a windfall as this placed me in a condition of travelling merrily. Though in the very blush of youth, a

certain forecast was not wanting to carry me discreetly through the world, and keep my head above water. It

must be admitted without question, that I was a youth of forward parts for my age, and unfettered by the

prejudices of innocence. I determined to buy a mule, and cheapened one at the first market town. My

knapsack was metamorphosed into a portmanteau, and by degrees I began to put on the man of consequence.

On the third day a man came across me singing vespers with lungs like a pair of bellows on the highway. By

his air, he seemed to be a musician of the church establishment, and I accosted him accordingly. Well done,

my holy howler of the hallelujahs! You sing your penitential ditties at a good jovial pitch. To all appearance

you solfa with your whole heart and soul. Good sir, replied he, I belong, with your good leave, to the

musical department of the Catholic church: and it is my common practice to keep my devotion and my wind

With this disposition to be sociable, we soon got into conversation. It was clear to me that I had fallen in with

a character not to be despised in point of shrewdness, nor indisposed to society and merriment. He was four

or fiveand twenty. My companion being on foot, I slackened my pace, for the pleasure of chatting with

him. Among other things, we talked about Toledo. I am perfectly well acquainted with that city, said the

brazenlunged torturer of anthems. It was my residence for a considerable time, and my connections there are

not altogether contemptible. And in what part of the town, interrupted I, did you reside? In the New Street,

was his answer. I was hand in glove with Don Vincent de Buena Garra, Don Matthias de Cordello, and two or

three other gentlemen of very considerable fashion. We lived together; took our meals at the same mess, and,

in short, were scarcely ever asunder. It was a charming society! This avowal was no small surprise to me, for

it is to be understood, that the gentlemen whose names he cited with so pompous an air were the very

sharpers with whom I had been affiliated at Toledo. Why, thou degenerate vicar choral! exclaimed I, these

fine blades of whom thou hast been boasting are among the number of my acquaintance also, for I too have

lived with them in the New Street; we were hand in glove, took our meals at the same mess, and, in short,

were scarcely ever asunder. You are a wag! replied he, with a knowing wink, that is to say, you got into the

gang three years ago, when I left it. My motive for quitting such a worshipful fraternity, resumed I, was an

itch for travelling. I mean to make the tour of Spain. A little more knowledge of the world will make me quite

another thing. Doubtless, said he, there is no possible way but travelling to rub off the rust, or bring wit,

talent, and address to perfection. It is for the selfsame reason that I too turned my back upon Toledo, though

the time glided away there very agreeably. But thanks to a kind providence, which has yoked me with a

labourer in my own vineyard, when I least expected it. Let us join our forces, let us travel the same road, let

us make a jointstock out of our neighbours' purses, let us rob, let us cheat, let us avail ourselves of every

opportunity that may offer of exemplifying our theory, and improving our practice, in the noble art on which

The proposal was made in so candid a spirit, so like a citizen of the world, untainted with the selfishness of

your honest men, that I closed in with it at once. My confidence was surrendered at the first summons to the

frankness with which he volunteered his own. We spoke our free hearts each to the other. I dilated all my

pilgrimage, and he spake of most disastrous chances, of moving accidents through which he had passed even

from his boyish days to this very moment of his ripe and rampant roguery. It appeared that he was on his way

from Portalegre, whence he had been obliged to decamp with the utmost expedition on account of a little

swindling transaction in which his luck happened not to keep pace with his ingenuity. The habit he wore was

sacrilegiously adopted as a cloak to his person and real character, since he thought it safest to be near the

church, however far from God. Thus did we two share all our counsel, and pledge our brother's vows, till we

grew together like a double cherry, and determined, with two seeming bodies but one heart, to incorporate

our voices and minds in some masterstroke at Merida. If it took, well and good; if not, we had only to cut

and run. From this moment, community of goods, that pure and simple feature of patriarchal life, was enacted

as a law between us. Moralez, it is true, for that was my fellowtraveller's name, did not find himself in the

most splendid condition possible. His funds were limited to five or six ducats, with a few little articles in a

bag. I therefore was the monied man of the firm; but then there was brass in his forehead for an inexhaustible

coinage, and the seeming of a saint when he played the devil most. So on we journeyed on the rideandtie

We put up at an inn near the skirts of the town, where my comrade changed his dress. When he had rigged

himself in layman's attire, we took a turn up and down, to reconnoitre the ground, and see if we could pick

out some opportunity of labouring in our vocation. Had it been our good fortune to have lived before Homer,

that old apologist for sharping by wholesale would have dignified our excursion with a simile.

Not half so keen, fierce vultures of the chase Stoop from the mountains on the feathered race,

To descend into plain prose, we were ruminating on the chapter of accidents, and hammering out some theme

for the employment of our industry, when we espied a greyheaded old gentleman in the street, sword in

hand, defending himself against three men who were thrusting at him with all their might and main. The

unfairness of the match was what stuck in my throat; so that flying, with the spirit of a prizefighter, to see

fair play, I made common cause with the old man. Moralez followed up my blows. We proved ourselves

Our rescued friend was profuse in his acknowledgments. We are in rapture, said I, at our good luck in being

here so seasonably for your assistance: but let us at least know to whom we have been so fortunate as to be

serviceable; and what inducement those three men could possibly have for their murderous attempt.

Gentlemen replied he, my obligations are too great to hesitate about satisfying your curiosity; my name is

Jerome de Moyadas, a gentleman of this town, living on my means. One of these cut throat rascals, from

whom you have rescued me, professes to be in love with my daughter. He asked her of me in marriage within

these few days; and for want of gaining my consent in a quiet way, has just attempted to force himself into

my daughter's good graces, by sending me into the other world. And may we take the liberty, rejoined I, of

inquiring farther, why you were so obdurate to the proposals of this enamoured swain? I will explain the

whole to you at once, said he. I had a brother, a merchant in this town; his name was Austin. Two months ago

he happened to be at Calatrava, and took up his abode with his correspondent, Juan Velez de la Membrilla.

They got to be as loving as turtles; and my brother, to clench the connection, engaged my daughter Florence

to his good friend's son, not doubting but he had influence enough with me to redeem his pledge when he

returned to Merida. Accordingly, he no sooner opened himself on the subject than I consented out of pure

fraternal affection. He sent Florence's picture to Calatrava; but, alas! he did not live to put the finishing hand

to his own work. We laid him with his forefathers three weeks ago! On his deathbed, he besought me not to

dispose of my girl but in favour of his correspondent's son. I satisfied his mind on that point; and this is the

reason why I have refused Florence to the suitor by whom I was assaulted, though the match would have

been a very desirable one. But my word is my idol; and we are in daily expectation of Juan Velez de la

Membrilla's heir, who is to be my soninlaw, though I know no more of him, nor of his father neither, than

if they were just imported from an undiscovered island. But I beg pardon; this is an old man's garrulity. Yet

This tale did I swallow with a greedy ear; and pouncing at once upon a part to play, which my fruitful

imagination suggested, I put on an air of inordinate surprise, and ventured at all hazards to lift my eyes

upward to a purer region. Then turning to my fatherinlaw, with an expression of feeling which nothing but

hypocrisy could personate: Ah! Signor de Moyadas, is it possible that, on my arrival at Merida, I should

enjoy the heartfelt triumph of rescuing from foul assassination the honoured parent of my peerless love? This

exclamation produced all the astonishment it was levelled to excite in the old citizen. Even Moralez himself

stared like an honest man, and shewed by his face that there was a degree of impudence to which his

conceptions had not hitherto risen. What! do not my ears deceive me? exclaimed the old gentleman. And are

you really the son of my brother's correspondent? Really and truly, Signor Jerome de Moyadas, rejoined I

with impregnable effrontery, and a hug round his neck that had nearly sent him after his brother. Behold the

selected mortal of his species, to whose arms the adorable Florence is devoted! But these nuptial

anticipations, transporting as they are, must yield to the anguish of my soul for the demise of their founder.

Poor Austin! He is gone, and we must all follow! I should be ingratitude personified, if my heart was not

lacerated and rent by the death of a man to whom I owe all my hopes of bliss. At the term of this period, I

squeezed good Jerome's wezand once more, and drew the back of my hand across my eyes, to wipe away the

tears it had not been convenient to shed. Moralez, who by this time had conned over the pretty pickings to be

made out of this juggle, was not wanting to play his underpart. He passed himself off for my servant, and

improved upon his master in lamentation for the untimely death of Signor Austin. My honoured master

Jerome, exclaimed he, what a loss have you sustained, since your brother is no more! He was such an honest

man. Honest men are not to be met with every day. A superfine sample of commerce! A dealer in friendship

without a percentage! A dealer in merchandise without an underhand advantage! A dealer who dealt as

We had our hands to play against a man who was a novice at the game. Simple and cullible, so far from

smelling out the rat, he took his stink for a nosegay. And why, said he, did you not come straight to my

house? It was not friendly to put up at an inn. On the footing we are likely to be upon, there should be none of

those punctilios. Sir, said Moralez, helping me out of the scrape, my master is a little too much given to stand

upon ceremony. Though to be sure, in the present instance, he is in some degree excusable for declining to

appear before in this uncouth trim. We have been robbed upon the road, and have lost all our travelling

equipage. My lad, interrupted I, has let the cat out of the bag, Signor de Moyadas. This unlucky accident has

prevented me from paying my respects sooner. True love is diffident; nor could I venture in this garb into the

presence of a mistress who was unacquainted with my person. I was therefore waiting the return of a servant

whom I have sent to Calatrava. Such a trifle, rejoined the old man, must not deprive us of your company; and

With such sort of importunity, he forced me into his family: but as we were on our way, the pretended

robbery was a natural topic of conversation; and I should have made light of my baggage, though the loss was

very considerable, had not Florence's picture unluckily formed a part of the booty! The old codger chuckled

at that, and observed, that such a loss was easily repaired: the original was worth five hundred per cent. more

than the copy. To make me amends, as soon as we got home, he called his daughter, a girl of not more than

sixteen, with a person to have reclaimed a libertine, if beauty ever possessed that power except in romance.

You behold, said he, the bale of goods my late brother has consigned to you. Oh! my good sir, exclaimed I in

an impassioned tone, words are not wanting to assure me that this must be the lovely Florence: those

bewitching features are engraven on my memory, their impression is indelible on my heart. If the portrait I

have lost, the mere outline of these embodied charms, could kindle passion by its cold and lifeless likeness,

judge what must be my agitation, my transport at this moment. Such language is too flattering to be sincere,

said Florence; nor am I so weak and vain as to be persuaded that my merits warrant it. That is right!

interchange your fine speeches, my children! This was a goodnatured encouragement from the father, who

at once left me alone with his daughter, and taking Moralez aside, said to him; My friend, those who made so

free with your baggage, doubtless did not stand upon any ceremony with your money. Very true, sir,

answered my colleague; an overpowering band of robbers poured down upon us near CastilBlazo, and left

us not a rag but what we carry on our backs: but we are in momentary expectation of receiving bills of

While you are waiting for your bills of exchange, replied the old man, taking a purse out of his pocket, here

are a hundred pistoles with which you may do as you please. Oh, sir! rejoined Moralez, as if he were

shocked, my master will never take them. You do not know him. Heaven and earth! he is a man of the nicest

scruples in money matters. Not one of your shabby fellows, always spunging upon his friends, and ready to

take up money wherever he can get it! Running in debt is ratsbane to him. If he is to beg his bread or go into

an hospital, why there is an end of it! but as for borrowing, he will never be reduced to that. So much the

better! said the good burgess: I value him the more for his independence. Running in debt is a mean thing; it

ought to be ratsbane to him and everybody else. Your people of quality, to be sure, may plead prescription in

their favour; there is a sort of privileged swindling, not incompatible with high honour, in high life. If

tradesmen were to be paid, they would be too nearly on a level with their employers. But as your master has

such upright principles, heaven forbid they should be violated in this house! Since any offer of pecuniary

assistance would hurt his feelings, we must say no more about it. As the point seemed to be settled, the purse

was for steering its course back again into the pocket; but my provident partner laid hold of Signor de

Moyadas by the arm, and delayed the convoy. Stay, sir, said he, whatever aversion my master may have to

borrowing on a general principle, and considered as borrowing, yet there is a light in which, with good

management, he may be brought to look kindly on your hundred pistoles. In fact, it is only in a mercantile

point of view, as an affair of debtor and creditor between strangers, that he holds this formal doctrine; but he

is free and easy enough where he is on a family footing. Why, there is his own father! It is only ask and have;

and he does ask and have accordingly. Now you are going to be a second father to him, and are fairly entitled

to be put on the same confidential footing. He is a young man of nice discrimination, and will doubtless think

By thus shifting his ground, Moralez got possession of the old gentleman's purse. As for the girl and myself,

we were engaged in a little agreeable flirting; but were soon joined by our honoured parent, who interrupted

our t�te�t�te. He told Florence how much he was obliged to me, and expressed his gratitude to myself, in

terms which left no doubt of our being a very happy family. I made the most of so favourable a disposition,

by telling the good man, that if he would bestow on me an acknowledgment the nearest to my heart, he must

hasten my marriage with his daughter. My eagerness was not taken amiss. He assured me, that in three days

at latest I should be a happy bridegroom, and that instead of six thousands ducats, the fortune he had

promised to give my wife, he would make it up ten, as a substantial proof how deeply he felt himself indebted

Here we were, therefore, quite at home with our good friend Jerome de Moyadas, sumptuously entertained,

and catching every now and then a vista vision of ten thousand ducats, with which we proposed to march off

abruptly from Merida. Our transports, however, were not without their alloy. It was by no means improbable

that within three days the bon� fide son of Juan Velez de la Membrilla might come and interrupt our sport.

This fear had for its foundation more than the weakness of our nerves. On the very next morning, a sort of

clodpole, with a portmanteau across his shoulders, knocked at the door of Florence's father. I was not at home

at the time, but my colleague had to bear the brunt of it. Sir, said the rustic to our sagacious friend, I belong to

the young gentleman at Calatrava who is to be your soninlaw to Signor de la Membrilla. We have both

just come off our journey: he will be here in an instant, and sent me forward to prepare you for his arrival.

Hardly had these unaccountable tidings been announced, when the master appeared in person; which

stretched the old fellow's blinkers into a stare, and put Moralez a little to the blush.

Young Pedro was what we call a tall fellow of his inches. He began at once paying his compliments to the

master of the house; but the good man did not give him time to finish his speech; and turning towards my

partner in iniquity, asked what was the meaning of all this. Hereupon Moralez, whose power of face was not

to be exceeded by any human impudence, boldly asserted our identity, and said to the old gentleman Sir,

these two men here before you belong to the gang which pillaged us on the highway. I have a perfect

recollection of their features; and in particular could swear to him who has the effrontery to call himself the

son of Signor Juan Velez de la Membrilla. The old citizen gulped down the lies of Moralez like nectar, and

told the intruders, on the supposition of their being the impostors Gentlemen, you are come the day after

the fair; the trick was a very good one, but it will not pass; the enemy has taken the ground before you. Pedro

de la Membrilla has been under this roof since yesterday. Have all your wits about you, answered the young

man from Calatrava; you are nursing a viper in your bosom. Be assured that Juan Velez de la Membrilla has

neither chick nor child but myself. And what relation is the hangman to you? replied the old dupe: you are

better known than liked in this house. Can you look this young man in the face? or can you deny that you

robbed his master? If I were anywhere but under your roof, rejoined Pedro in a rage, I would punish the

insolence of this scoundrel who fancies to pass me off for a highwayman. He is indebted for his safety to your

presence, which puts a curb upon my choler. Good sir, pursued he, you are grossly imposed on. I am the

favoured youth to whom your brother Austin has promised your daughter. Is it your pleasure for me to

produce the whole correspondence with my father on the subject of the impending match? Will you be

satisfied with Florence's picture sent me by him as a present a little while before his death?

No, put in the old burgess crustily; the picture will work just as strongly on my conviction as the letters. I am

perfectly aware by what chance they all fell into your hands; and if you will take a stupid fellow's advice,

Merida will soon be rid of such rubbish. A quick march may save you a trouncing. This is beyond all bearing,

screamed out the young royster with an overwhelming vehemence. My name shall never be stolen from me,

and assumed by a common cheat with impunity; neither shall my person be confounded with that of a

freebooter. There are those in this town who can identify me: they are forth coming, and shall expose the

fallacy by which you are prejudiced against me. With this assurance he withdrew, attended by his servant,

and Moralez kept possession of the field. The adventure had even the effect of determining Jerome de

Moyadas to fix the wedding for the very time being. Accordingly he went his way, for the purpose of giving

Though my colleague in knavery was well enough pleased to see Florence's father in a humour so pat for our

purposes, he was not without certain scruples of conscience about our safety. It was to be feared, lest the

probable proceedings of Pedro might be followed up by awkward consequences; so that he waited

impatiently for my arrival, to make me acquainted with what had occur red. I found him over head and ears in

a brown study. What is the matter, my friend? said I, seemingly there is something upon your mind. Indeed

there is; and something that will be minded, answered he. At the same time he let me into the affair. Now you

may judge, added he after a pause, whether we have not some food for reflection. It is your ill star, rash

contriver, which has thrown us into this perplexity. The idea, it must he confessed, was full of fire and

ingenuity; had it answered in the application, your renown would have been emblazoned in the chronicles of

our fraternity; but according to present appearances, the run of luck is against us, and my counsels incline to a

prudent avoidance of all explanations, by quietly sneaking off with the marketpenny we have made of the

Master Moralez, replied I to this desponding speech, you give way to difficulties with more haste than good

speed. Such pusillanimity does but little honour to Don Matthias de Cordel, and the other gallant blades with

whom you were affiliated at Toledo. After serving a campaign under such experienced generals, it is not

soldierly to shrink from the perils of the field. For my part, I am resolved to fight the battles of these heroes

over again, or, in more vulgar phrase, to prove myself a chip from the old blocks. The precipice which makes

your head turn giddy only stiffens my sinews to surmount the toils of the way, and push forward to the end of

our career. If you arrive at your journey's end in a whole skin, said my companion, I will myself be your

Just as Moralez was finishing this learned allusion, Jerome de Moyadas came in. You shall be my

soninlaw this very evening, said he. Your servant must have given you an account of what has just passed.

What say you to the impudence of the scoundrel who wanted to make me believe that he was the son of my

brother's correspondent? Honoured sir, answered I, with a melancholy air, and in a tone of voice the most

insinuating that ever cajoled the easy faith of a dotard, I feel within me that it is not in my nature to carry on

an imposition without betraying it in my countenance. It now becomes necessary to make you a sincere

confession. I am not the son of Juan Velez de la Membrilla. What is it you tell me? interrupted the old man,

out of breath with surprise, and out of his wits with apprehension. So then! you are not the young man to

whom my brother. . . . . For pity's sake, sir, interrupted I in my turn, condescend to give me a hearing

patiently to the end of my story. For these eight days have I doted to distraction on your daughter; and this

dotage, this distraction, has riveted me to Merida. Yesterday, after having rescued you from your danger, I

was making up my mind to ask her of you in marriage; but you gave a check to my passion and put a tie upon

my tongue, by the intelligence that she was destined for another. You told me that your brother, on his

deathbed, enjoined you to give her to Pedro de la Membrilla; that your word was pledged, and that you were

the sworn vassal and bondman of your veracity. These circumstances, it must be owned, were overwhelming

in the extreme; and my romantic passion, at the last gasp of its despair, gained breath by the stratagem with

which the god of love inspired me. I must at the same time declare that a trick is at the best but a mean thing,

and, however sanctified by the motive, my conscience recoiled at the delusion. Yet I could not but think that

my pardon would be granted on the discovery, when it should come out that I was an Italian prince travelling

through this country as a private gentle man. My father reigns supreme over a nest of inaccessible valleys,

lying between Switzerland, the Milanese, and Savoy. It could not but occur to me that you would be

agreeably surprised when I should unfold to you my birth, and having married Florence under my fictitious

character, should announce to her the rank she had attained, with all the rapture of an enamoured husband,

and all the stage effect of a hero in tragedy or romance. But heaven, pursued I, with an hypocritical softening

down of my accents, has visited my sins by cutting me off from such a perennial stream of joy. Pedro de la

Membrilla was introduced upon the scene; he must have his name back again, whatever the restitution may

cost me. Your promise binds you hand and foot to fix upon him for your soninlaw; it is your duty to give

him the preference, without taking my rank and station into the account; without mercy on the forlorn

condition to which you are going to reduce me. To be sure, it might be said, but then I should say it who

ought not to say it, that your brother had only the authority of an uncle over your daughter, that you are her

father, and that there is more right and reason in discharging an actual debt of gratitude towards your

preserver, than in being mealymouthed about a verbal promise which would press but lightly on the

Yes, without doubt, that argument is indisputable, exclaimed Jerome de Moyadas; and on that ground there

can no longer be any question between you and Pedro de la Membrilla. If my brother Austin were still living,

he would not think it bad morality to give the preference to a man who has saved my life, nor a bad

speculation to close the bargain with a prince who has not disdained to court our alliance. It were an absolute

suicide on the part of all my opening prospects; the frantic desperation of an acknowledged incurable, not to

dispose of my daughter so illustriously, not to solicit your highness's acceptance of her hand. And yet, sir,

resumed I, these things are not to be determined without due deliberation; look at your own interests and

safety with a microscopic eye, for though the illustrious channel through which my blood has flowed for ages

. . . . You are scarcely serious, interrupted he, in supposing that I can hesitate for a moment. No, may it please

your highness; it is my most humble and earnest request that you will deign, on this very evening, to honour

the happy Florence with your hand. Well, then! said I, be it so; go yourself and be the bearer of the

unlooked for tidings, announce to her the brilliant career of her exalted destiny.

While the good citizen was putting his best foot foremost, to instil into his daughter that she had made the

conquest of a prince, Moralez, who had taken in the whole conversation with greedy ear, threw himself upon

his knees before me, and did homage in these bantering terms. Most potent, grave, and august Italian prince,

son of a sovereign, supreme over a nest of inaccessible valleys, lying between Switzerland, the Milanese, and

Savoy, permit me to humble myself at your highness's feet, in humble acknowledgment of the ecstasy into

which you have thrown me. By the honour of a swindler, you are one of the wonders of our world. I always

thought myself the first man in the line; but in good truth I doff my bonnet before you, whose genius seems to

supersede the lessons of experience. Then you are no longer uneasy about the result, said I to my colleague in

iniquity. Oh! as to that, not in the least, answered he. I no longer care a fig for Master Pedro; let him come as

soon as he pleases, we are a match for him. Here we are, then, Moralez and myself, safe seated on the saddle,

and rising in our stirrups. We even went so far as to begin settling the course we should pursue with the

fortune, on which we reckoned so securely, that if it had already been in our pockets, we could not have

chuckled more triumphantly over the proverb of "a bird in the hand." Yet we were not in actual possession,

which is more than legal right: and the sequel of the adventure proved to us, that manythings fall out between

We very soon saw the young man of Calatrava returning. He was accompanied by two citizens and by an

alguazil, whose dignity was as much supported by his whiskers, and by the lowering overcast of his swarthy

aspect, as by the weight of his official character. Florence's father was of the party. Signor de Moyadas, said

Pedro to him, here are three honest people come to answer for me; they are acquainted with my person, and

can tell you who I am. Yes, undoubtedly, exclaimed the alguazil, I can depose to the fact. I certify to all those

whom it may concern, that you are known to me: your name is Pedro, and you are the only son of Juan Valez

de la Membrilla: whosoever dares to maintain the contrary is an impostor. I believe you implicitly, master

alguazil, said the good creature Jerome de Moyadas, rather drily. Your evidence is gospel to me, as well as

that of these fair and honest tradesmen you have brought with you. I am fully satisfied that the young

gentleman on whose behalf you come is the only son of my brother's correspondent. But what is that to me? I

Oh! then it is quite another matter, said the alguazil. I only come to your house for the purpose of assuring

you that this young man is no impostor. You have the authority of a parent over your child, and no one has

any right to dictate to you how you are to marry her, and whether you will or no. Neither do I, on my part,

interrupted Pedro, pretend to lay any force on the inclinations of Signor de Moyadas; but he will perhaps

allow me to ask him why he has so suddenly changed his resolution. Has he any reason to be dissatisfied with

me? Alas! let me at least understand, that in losing the sweet hope of becoming his sonin law, my

promised bliss has not been wrested from me by any misconduct of my own. I have no complaint to make of

you, answered the old man; nay, I will even tell you more; it is with sincere sorrow that I find myself under

the necessity of breaking my word with you, and I heartily beseech you to forgive me for having done so. I

am persuaded that you are too generous to bear me any illwill for having thrown the balance into the scale

of a rival, who has saved my life. You see him here, pursued he, introducing my noble self, this is the

illustrious personage who threw round me the shield of his protection in my great peril: and, the better still to

apologize for my seemingly harsh treatment of yourself, you are to know that he is an Italian prince.

At these last words, Pedro was dumbfounded, and looked as if he could not help it. The two tradesmen

opened their eyes as wide as they could stare, with surprise at finding themselves for the first time in princely

society. But the alguazil, in the habit of looking at things with the cross eye of suspicion, divined most

perspicuously that this marvellous adventure must be a complete humbug; and the verification of the

prophecy was calculated to put money into the pocket of the prophet. He therefore conned over my

countenance with a very inquisitive regard; but as my features, which were new to justice, threw him out

most cruelly from hunting down the game he was in chase of, he had no alternative but to try his luck on my

companion. Unfortunately for my highness of the inaccessible valleys, he knew again the hangdog features

of Moralez; and recollecting to have seen him within the purlieus of a gaol, Ay, ay! exclaimed he, this is one

of my established customers. This gentleman is a particular acquaintance of mine, and you may take his

character from me for one of the rankest rascals within the kingdoms and principalities of Spain. Softly, look

before you leap, most adventurous alguazil, said Jerome de Moyadas; this lad, of whom you draw so

unfavourable a picture, is in the travelling retinue of a prince. So much the better, retorted the alguazil; a man

would not desire clearer evidence on which to bring in his verdict. If we can but hang the servant, we shall

soon send the master to the devil. The case is as undeniable as a feed counsel's plea; these pleasant sparks are

a couple of fortunehunters, who have laid their heads together to take you in. I am an old hound upon this

scent; so that, by way of proof presumptive that these merry vagabonds are within the contemplation of the

law in that case provided, I shall lodge them where they will be well taken care of. They will have plenty of

time for meditation under the chastising philosophy of a turnkey; or should confinement fail to mend their

morals, we have a sort of tangible discipline, which insinuates reformation by the inlet of a smarting hide.

Stop there, and bethink you in good time, master officer, rejoined the old gentleman; we must not draw the

cord tighter than it will bear. You never make any bones, you hangerson of the law, about hurting the

feelings of better men than yourselves. May not this servant be a common cheat, without his master being a

swindler? Princes are persons of honour as a matter of course; yet the retainers to a court are inordinate

rascals; it requires no conjurer to find that out. Are you playing into the hands of your deluders, with your

princes? interrupted the alguazil. This new manufacturer of false pretences is a proficient, take my word for

it; but I shall quench his zeal in the service, and gravel the ingenuity of his partner, with a whereas and a

commitment in due form. The scouts of justice are all round the door, who will worry their game every inch

of the chase, if they do not suffer themselves to be taken quietly on their form. So come along, may it please

This upshot of the business was a deathblow to me, as well as to Moralez; and our confusion did but infuse

doubts into the mind of Jerome de Moyadas, or rather burned, sunk, and destroyed us in his esteem. He began

rather to think, not without reason, that we had some little design to impose on his credulity. Nevertheless he

acted on this occasion in the spirit of a man of honour and a gentleman. My good friend and protector, said he

to the alguazil, your conjectures may be without foundation; on the other hand, they may turn out to have too

much truth in them. Whichever of these alternatives may be the fact, let us not look too curiously into their

characters. They are both young, and have time enough for amendment if they want it; let them go their ways,

and withdraw whithersoever it may best please them. Make no opposition, I beseech you, to their safe egress;

it is a favour which you may consider as done to me, and my motive for asking it is to acquit myself of my

debt to them. If my heart was not too soft for my profession, answered the alguazil, I should lodge these

pretty gentlemen in limbo, in defiance of all your pleadings in their favour; but your eloquence and my

susceptibility have relaxed the stern demeanour of justice for this evening. Let them, however, leave town on

the spur of the occasion: for if I come across them tomorrow, and there is any faith in an alguazil, they shall

When it was signified to Moralez and me, culprits as we were, that we were to be let off scot free, we

polished up the brass upon our foreheads a little. It was time now to bounce and swagger, and to maintain that

we were men of undeniable respectability; but the alguazil looked askew at us, and muttered that least said

was soonest mended. I do not know how, but those gentry have a strange knack of curbing our genius; they

are complete lords of the ascendant. Florence and her dowry therefore were lost to Pedro de la Membrilla by

a turn of the dice, and we may conclude that he was received as the soninlaw of Jerome de Moyadas. I

took to my heels with my companion. We blundered on the road to Truxillo, with the consolation at our

hearts of having at least pocketed a hundred pistoles by our frolic. An hour before nightfall we passed

through a little village with the intention of putting up for the evening at the next stage. An inn of very

tolerable appearance for the place attracted our notice. The landlord and landlady were sitting at the door, on

a long bench such as usually graces a pothouse porch. Our host, a tall man, withered, and with one foot in

the grave, was tinkling on a cracked guitar to the unbounded emolument of his wife, whose faculties seemed

to hang in rapture on the performance. Gentlemen, cried out the intrepid tavernkeeper, when he found that

we were not upon the halt, you will do well to stop here; you may fare worse further off. There is a devil of a

three leagues to the nearest village, and you will find nothing to make you amends for what you leave behind;

you may assure yourselves of that. Take a word of advice, know when you are well used; I will treat you with

the fat of the land, and charge you at the lowest rate. There was no resisting such a plea. We came up to our

courteous entertainers, paid them the compliments of course, and sitting down by their side, the conversation

was supported by all four on the indifferent topics of the day. Our host announced himself as an officer of the

Holy Brotherhood, and his rib was a fat laughing squab of a woman, withoutward goodnature, but with an

Our discourse was broken in upon by the arrival of from twelve to fifteen riders, some mounted on mules,

others on horseback, followed by about thirty sumptermules laden with packages. Ah! what a princely

retinue! exclaimed the landlord at the sight of so much company: where can I put them all? In an instant the

village was crammed full of men and beasts. As luck would have it, there was near the inn an immense barn,

where the sumpter mules and their packages were secured; the saddlemules and horses were taken care of in

other places. As for their masters, they thought less about bespeaking beds than about calling for the bill of

fare, and ordering a good supper. The host and hostess, with a servant girl whom they kept, were all upon the

alert to make things agreeable. They laid a heavy hand upon all the fowls in the poultryyard. These precious

roasts, with some undisguised rabbits, cats in the masquerade of a fricassee, and a deluging tureen of soup,

stinking of cabbage and greasy with mutton fat, were enough to have given a sickener to the inveterate

As for Moralez and myself, we cast a scrutinizing eye on these troopers, nor were they behindhand in passing

their secret judgments upon us. At last we came together in conversation, and it was proposed on our part, if

they had no objection, that we should all sup together. They assured us that they should be extremely happy

in our company. Here we are, then, all seated round the table. There was one among them who seemed to

take the lead; and for whom the rest, though in the main they were on the most intimate terms with him,

thought it necessary on some occasions to testify their deference. In case of a dispute, this high gentleman

assumed the umpire, he talked in a tone above the common pitch, going so far sometimes as to contradict in

no very courtly phrase the sentiments of others, who, far from giving him back his own, were ready to swear

to his assertions and crouch under his rebuke. By accident the discourse turned on Andalusia. Moralez

happening to launch out into the praise of Seville, the man about whom I have been talking said to him

My good fellow traveller, you are ringing the chimes on the city which gave birth to me; at least I am a

native of the neighbourhood, since the little town of Mayrena is answerable for my appearance in the world. I

have the same story to tell you, answered my companion. I am also of Mayrena; and it is scarcely possible

but that our families should be acquainted. Whose son are you? An honest notary's, replied the stranger, by

name Martin Moralez. As fate will have it, exclaimed my comrade with emotion, the adventure is very

remarkable! You are then my eldest brother, Manuel Moralez? Exactly so, said the other, and if my senses do

not deceive me, you your very self are my little brother Lewis, whom I left in the cradle when I turned my

back upon my father's house? You are right in your conjectures, answered my honest colleague. At this

discovery they both got up from table, and almost hugged the breath out of each other's bodies. At last Signor

Manuel said to the company Gentlemen, this circumstance is altogether marvellous. By mere chance, I

have met with a brother and have been challenged by him, whom I have not seen for more than twenty years:

allow me to introduce him. At once all the travellers, who had risen from their seats out of curiosity and good

manners, paid their compliments to the younger Moralez, and made him run the gauntlet through their

salutations. When these were over, the party returned to the table, nor did they think any more of an

adjournment. Bedtime never entered. into their heads. The two brothers sat next to one another, and talked

in a whisper about their family affairs; the other guests plied the bottle, and made merry in a louder key.

Lewis had a long conference with Manuel; and afterwards, taking me aside, said to me: All these troopers

belong to the household of the Count de Montanos, whom the king has very lately appointed to the

viceregal government of Majorca. They are convoying the equipage of the viceroy to Alicant, where they

are to embark. My brother, who has risen to be steward to that noble man, proposes to take me along with

him; and on the difficulty I started about leaving you, he told me that if you would be of the party, he would

procure you a good berth. My dear friend, pursued he, I advise you not to stand out against this proposal. Let

us take flight together for the island of Majorca. If we find our quarters pleasant, we will fix there; and if they

I accepted the proposal with the best grace possible. What a reinforcement, in the person of young Moralez

and myself, to the household of the count! We took our departure in a body from the inn, before daybreak.

We got to the city of Alicant by long stages, and there I bought a guitar, and arranged my dress in a manner

suited to my new destination, before we embarked. Nothing ran in my head but the island of Majorca; and

Lewis Moralez was a new man as well as myself. It should seem as though we had bid farewell to the

rogueries of this wicked world. Yet, not to play the liar in the ear of so rigorous a confessor as my own

conscience, we had a mind not to pass for villains incarnate, now that we had got into company that had some

pretensions to decency: and that was the sum total of our honesty. The natural bent of our genius remained

much the same; we were still men of business, but just now keeping a vacation. In short, we went on board

gallantly and gaily in this lucid interval of innocence, and had no idea but of landing at Majorca under the

especial care of Neptune and AEolus. Hardly, however, had we cleared the gulf of Alicant, when a sudden

and violent storm arose, enough to have frightened better men. Now is my opportunity, or never, to speak of

moving accidents by flood; to set the atmosphere on fire, and give a louder explosion to the thundercloud; to

compare the whistling of the winds to the factions of a populace, and the rolling of the waves to the shock of

conflicting hosts; with other such oldfashioned phraseologies as have been heirlooms of Parnassus from

time immemorial. But it is useless to be poetical without invention. Suffice it therefore to say, in slang

metaphor, that the storm was a devil of a storm, and obliged us to stand in for the point of Cabrera. This is a

desert island, with a small fort, at that time garrisoned by an officer and five or six soldiers. Our reception

As it was necessary for us to stay there some days, for the purpose of refitting our sails and rigging, we

devised various kinds of amusements to keep off the foul fiend, melancholy. Every one did as seemed good

in his own eyes: some played at cards, others diverted themselves in other ways; but as for me, I went about

exploring the island, with such of our gentry as had either a curiosity or a taste for the picturesque. We were

frequently obliged to clamber from rock to rock; for the face of the country is rugged, and the soil scanty,

presenting a scene difficult of access, but interesting from its wildness. One day, while we were speculating

on these dry and barren prospects, and extracting a moral from the vagaries of nature, who can swell into the

fruitful mother and the copious nurse, or shrink into the lean and loathsome skeleton as she pleases, our sense

was all at once regaled with a most delicious fragrance. We turned as with a common impulse towards the

east, whence the scented gale seemed to come. To our utter astonishment, we discovered among the rocks a

green plat of considerable dimensions, gay with honeysuckles more luxuriant and more odorous than even

those which thrive so greatly in the climate of Andalusia. We were not sorry to approach nearer these

delicious shrubs, which were wasting their sweetness in such unchecked profusion, when it turned out that

they lined the entrance of a very deep cavern. The opening was wide, and the recess in consequence partially

illuminated. We were determined to explore; and descended by some stone steps overgrown with flowers on

each side, so that it was difficult to say whether the approach was formed by art or nature. When we had got

down, we saw several little streams winding over a sand, the yellow lustre of which outrivalled gold. These

drew their sources from the continual distillations of the rock within, and lost themselves again in the hollows

of the ground. The water looked so clear, that we were tempted to drink of it; and such was its freshness, that

we made a party to return the next day, with some bottles of generous wine, which we were persuaded would

It was not without regret that we left so agreeable a place: nor did we omit, on our return to the fort, boasting

among our comrades of so interesting a discovery. The commander of the fortress, however, with the

warmest professions of friendship, warned us against going any more to the cavern, with which we were so

much delighted. And why so? said I, is there anything to be afraid of? Most undoubtedly, answered he. The

corsairs of Algiers and Tripoli sometimes land upon this island, for the purpose of watering at that spring.

One day they surprised two soldiers of my garrison there, whom they carried into slavery. It was in vain that

the officer assumed a tone of kind dissuasion; nothing could prevent us from going. We fancied that he meant

to play upon our fears; and the day following I returned to the cavern with three adventurous blades of our

establishment. We were even foolhardy enough to leave our firearms behind as a sort of bravado. Young

Moralez declined being of the party: the fort and the gamingtable had more charms for him, as well as for

We went down to the bottom of the cave, as on the preceding day, and set some bottles of the wine we had

brought with us to cool in the rivulets. While we were enjoying them in all the luxury of elegant conviviality,

our wits set in motion by the novelty of the scene, and the echo reverberating to the music of our guitars, we

espied at the mouth of the cavern several abominable faces overgrown with whiskers; neither did their

turbans and Turkish dresses render them a whit more amiable in our conceits. We nevertheless took it into

our heads that it was a frolic of our own party, set on by the commanding officer of the fort, and that they had

disguised themselves for the purpose of playing us a trick. With this impression on our minds, we set up a

horse laugh, and allowed a quiet entrance to about ten, without thinking of making any resistance. In a few

moments our eyes were opened to that fatal error, and we were convinced, in sober sadness, that it was a

corsair at the head of his crew, come to carry us away. Surrender, you Christian dogs, cried he in most

outlandish Castilian, or prepare for instant death. At the same time the men who accompanied him levelled

their pieces at us, and our ribs would have been well lined with the contents, if we had resisted in the least.

Slavery seemed the better alternative than death, so that we delivered our swords to the pirate. He ordered us

to be handcuffed and carried on board his vessel, which was moored not far off; then, setting sail, he steered

Thus were we punished for having neglected the warning given us by the officer of the garrison. The first

thing the corsair did was to put his hand into our pockets and make free with our money. No bad windfall for

him! The two hundred pistoles from the greenhorns at Placentia; the hundred which Moralez had received

from Jerome de Moyadas, and which, as ill luck would have it, were in my custody; all this was swept away

without a single qualm of conscience. My companions too had their purses well lined; and it was all fish that

came to the net. The pirate seemed to chuckle at so successful a drag; and the scoundrel, not contented with

chousing us of our cash, insulted us with his infernal Moorish witticisms: but the edge of his satire was not

half so keen as the dire necessity which made us the subject of it. After a thousand clumsy sarcasms, he

called for the bottles which we had set to cool in the fountain; those irreligious Mahometans not having

scrupled to load their consciences with the conveyance of the unholy fermentation. The master and his man

pledged one another in many a Christian bumper, and drank to our better acquaintance with a most provoking

While this farce was acting, my comrades wore a hanging look, which testified how pleasantly their thoughts

were employed. They were so much the more out of conceit with their captivity, as they thought they had

drawn a prize in the lottery of human life. The island of Majorca, with all its luxuries and delights, was a

melancholy contrast with their present situation. For my part, I had the good sense to take things as I found

them. Less put out of my way by my misfortune than the rest, I joined in conversation with this transmarine

joker, and shewed him that wit was the common language of Africa and of Europe. He was pleased with my

accommodating spirit. Young man, said he, instead of groaning and sighing, you do well to arm yourself with

patience, and to fall in with the current of your destiny. Play us a little air, continued he, observing that I had

a guitar by my side; let us have a specimen of your skill. I complied with his command, as soon as my arms

were loosened from their confinement, and began to thrum away in a style that drew down the applauses of

my discerning audience. It is true that I had been taught by the best master in Madrid, and that I played very

tolerably for an amateur upon that instrument. A song was then called for, and my voice gave equal

satisfaction. All the Turks on board testified by gestures of admiration the delight with which my

performance inspired them; from which circumstance it was but modest to conclude, that vocal music had

made no very extraordinary progress in their part of the world. The pirate whispered in my ear, that my

slavery should be no disadvantage to me; and that with my talents I might reckon upon an employment, by

I felt somewhat encouraged by these assurances; but flattering as they were, I was not without my uneasiness

as to the employment, which the corsair held out as a nameless, but invaluable boon. When we arrived in the

port of Algiers, a great number of persons were collected to receive us; and we had not yet disembarked,

when they uttered a thousand shouts of joy. Add to this, that the air reechoed with a confused sound of

trumpets, of Moorish flutes, and of other instruments, the fashion of that country, forming a symphony of

deafening clangour, but very doubtful harmony. The occasion of these rejoicings proceeded from a false

report, which had been current about the town. It had been the general talk that the renegado Mahomet,

meaning our amiable pirate, had lost his life in the attack of a large Genoese vessel; so that all his friends,

informed of his return, were eager to hail him with these thundering demonstrations of attachment.

We had no sooner set foot on shore, than my companions and myself were conducted to the palace of the

bashaw Soliman, where a Christian secretary, questioning us individually one after another, inquired into our

names, our ages, our country, our religion, and our qualifications. Then Mahomet, presenting me to the

bashaw, paid my voice more compliments than it deserved, and told him that I played on the guitar with a

most ravishing expression. This was enough to influence Soliman in his choice of me for his own immediate

service. I took up my abode therefore in his seraglio. The other captives were led into the public market, and

sold there at the usual rate of Christian cattle. What Mahomet had foretold to me on shipboard was

completely verified; my condition was exactly to my mind. I was not consigned to the stronghold of a prison,

nor kept to any works of oppressive labour. My indulgent master stationed me in a particular quarter, with

five or six slaves of superior rank, who were in momentary expectation of being ransomed, and were

therefore favoured in the distribution of our tasks. The care of watering the orangetrees and flowers in the

gardens was allotted as my portion. There could not be a more agreeable or less fatiguing employment.

Soliman was a man about forty years of age, well made as to figure, tolerably accomplished as to his mind,

and as much of a lady's man as could be expected from a Turk. His favourite was a Cashmirian, whose wit

and beauty had acquired an absolute dominion over his affections. He loved her even to idolatry. Not a day

but he paid his court to her by some elegant entertainment; at one time a concert of vocal and instrumental

music, at another, a dramatic performance after the fashion of the Turks, which fashion implies a loose sort of

comedy, where moral and modesty enter about as much into the contemplation of the contriver, as do

Aristotle and his unities. The favourite, whose name was Farrukhnaz, was passionately enamoured of these

exhibitions; she sometimes even got up among her own women some Arabian melodramas to be performed

before her admirer. She took some of the parts herself; and charmed the spectators by the abundant grace and

vivacity of her action. One day when I was among the musicians at one of these representations, Soliman

ordered me to play on the guitar, and to sing a solo between the acts of the piece. I had the good fortune to

give satisfaction, and was received with applause. The favourite herself, if my vanity did not mislead me, cast

On the next day, as I was watering the orangetrees in the gardens, there passed close by me an eunuch, who,

without stopping or saying a word, threw down a note at my feet. I picked it up with an emotion, strangely

compounded of pleasure and alarm. I crouched upon the ground, for fear of being observed from the windows

of the seraglio; and, concealing myself behind the boxes in which the orangetrees were planted, opened this

unexpected enclosure. There I found a diamond of very considerable value, and these words, in genuine

Castilian: "Young Christian, return thanks to heaven for your captivity. Love and fortune will render it the

harbinger of your bliss: love, if you are alive to the attractions of a fine person, and fortune, if you have the

I could not for a moment doubt that the letter was written by the favourite sultana; the style and the diamond

were more than presumptive evidence against her. Besides that nature did not cast me in the mould of a

coward, the vanity of keeping up a good understanding with the mistress of a scoundrelly Mahometan in

office, and, more than all the temptations of vanity or inclination, the hope of cajoling her out of four times as

much as the curmudgeon her master would demand for my ransom, put me into conceit with. the intention of

trying my luck at a venture, whatever risk might be incurred in the experiment. I went on with my gardening,

but always harping on the means of getting into the apartment of Farrukhnaz, or rather waiting till she opened

a door of communication; for I was clearly of opinion that she would not stop upon the threshold, but meet

me half way in the career of love and danger. My conjecture was not altogether without foundation. The same

eunuch who had led me into this amorous reverie passed the same way an hour afterwards, and said to me:

Christian, have you communed with your own determinations, and will you win a fair lady, by abjuring a

faint heart? I answered in the affirmative. Well, then, rejoined he, heaven sprinkle its dew upon your

resolutions! You shall see me betimes tomorrow morning. With this comfortable assurance, he withdrew.

The following day, I actually saw him make his appearance about eight o'clock in the morning. He made a

signal for me to go along with him: I obeyed the summons; and he conducted me into a hall where was a

large wrapper of canvas which he and another eunuch had just brought thither, with the design of carrying it

to the sultana's apartment, for the purpose of furnishing a scene for an Arabian pantomime, in preparation for

The two eunuchs unrolled the cloth, and laid me at my length on the proscenium; then, at the risk of turning

the farce into a tragedy by stifling me, they rolled it up again, with its palpitating contents. In the next place,

taking hold of it at each end, they conveyed me with impunity by this device into the chamber devoted to the

repose of the beautiful Cashmirian. She was alone with an old slave devoted to her wishes. They helped each

other to unroll their precious bale of goods; and Farrukhnaz, at the sight of her consignment, set up such an

alarm of delight, as exhibited the woman of the East, without for getting her prurient propensities. With all

my natural bias towards adventure, I could not recognize myself as at once transported into the private

apartment of the women, without something like an inauspicious damp upon my joy. The lady was aware of

my feelings, and anxious to dissipate the unpleasant part of them, Young man, said she, you have nothing to

fear. Soliman is just gone to his countryhouse: he is safely lodged for the day; so that we shall be able to

Hints like these rallied my scattered spirits, and gave a cast to my countenance which confirmed the

speculation of the favourite. You have won my heart, pursued she, and it is in my contemplation to soften the

severity of your bondage. You seem to be worthy of the sentiments which I have conceived for you. Though

disguised under the garb of a slave, your air is noble, and your physiognomy of a character to recommend

you to the good graces of a lady. Such an exterior must belong to one above the common. Unbosom yourself

to me in confidence; tell me who you are. I know that captives of superior condition and family disguise their

real circumstances, to be redeemed at a lower rate; but you have no inducement to practise such a deception

on me; and it would even be a precaution revolting to my designs in your favour, since I here pledge myself

for your liberty. Deal with sincerity, therefore, and own to me at once that you are a youth of illustrious rank.

In good earnest then, madam, answered I, it would ill become me to repay your generous partiality with

dissimulation. You are absolutely bent upon it, that I should entrust you with the secret of my quality, and

commands like yours are not to be questioned or resisted. I am the son of a Spanish grandee. And so it might

actually have been, for anything that I know to the contrary; at all events, the sultana gave me credit for it, so

that with considerable selfcongratulation, at having fixed her regard on a gentleman of some little figure in

the world, she assured me that it only depended on herself, whether or no we should meet pretty often in

private. In fact, we were no niggards of our mutual goodwill at the very first approaches. I never met with a

woman who was more what a man wishes her to be. She was besides an expert linguist, above all in Castilian,

which she spoke with fluency and purity. When she conceived it to be time for us to part, I got by her order

into a large osier basket, with an embroidered silk covering of her own manufacture; then the two slaves who

had brought me in were called, to carry me out as a present from the favourite to her deluded lord; for under

this pretence it is easy to screen any amorous exports from the inspection of the officers entrusted with the

As for Farrukhnaz and myself, we were not slack in other devices to bring us together; and that lovely captive

inspired me by degrees with as much love as she herself entertained for me. Our good understanding was kept

a profound secret for full two months, notwithstanding the extreme difficulty in a seraglio of veiling the

mysteries of love for any length of time from those uninitiated, whose eyes are jaundiced by their own

disqualification. Neither was the discovery made at last by the means of envious spies. An unlucky chance

disconcerted all our little arrangements, and the features of my fortune were at once aggravated into a frown.

One day when I had been introduced into the presence of the sultana, in the body of an artificial dragon,

invented as a machine for a spectacle, while we were parleying most amicably together, Soliman, to whom

we had given credit for having gone out of town, made his unwelcome appearance. He entered so abruptly

into his favourite's apartment, as scarcely to leave time for the old slave to give us notice of his approach.

Still less was there any opportunity to conceal me. Thus therefore, with all my enormities on my head, was I

He seemed considerably startled at the sight; and his countenance flashed with indignation on the instant. I

considered myself as a wretch just hovering on the brink of the grave; and death seemed arrayed in all the

paraphernalia of torture. As for Farrukhnaz, it was very evident, in good truth, that she was miserably

frightened; but instead of owning her crime and imploring pardon, she said to Soliman: My lord, before you

pronounce my sentence, be pleased to hear my defence. Appearances, doubtless, condemn me; and it must

strike you that I have committed an act of treason, worthy the most dreadful punishments. It is true, I have

brought this young captive hither; it is true that I have introduced him into my apartment, with just such

artifices as I should have used if I had entertained a violent passion for him. And yet, I call our great prophet

to witness, in spite of these seeming irregularities, I am not faithless to you. It was my wish to converse with

this Christian slave, for the purpose of disengaging him from his own sect, and proselytising him to that of

the true believers. But I have found in him a principle of resistance for which I was not well prepared. I have,

however, conquered his prejudices; and he came to give me an assurance that he would embrace

I do not mean to deny that it was an act of duty to have contradicted the favourite flatly, without paying the

least attention to the dangerous predicament in which I stood: but my spirits were taken by surprise; the

beloved partner of my imprudence was hovering on the brink of perdition; and my own fate was involved

with hers. How could I do otherwise than give a silent and perturbed assent to her impious fiction? My

tongue, indeed, refused to ratify it; but the bashaw, persuaded by my acquiescence that his mistress had told

him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, suffered his angry spirit to be tranquillized. Madam, answered

he, I am willing to believe that you have committed no infidelity towards me; and that the desire of doing a

thing agreeable to the prophet has been the means of leading you on to risk so hazardous and delicate a

proceeding. I forgive, therefore, your imprudence, on condition that this captive assumes the turban on the

spot. He sent immediately for a priest to initiate me. [These wandering priests are at present known in Africa

by the name of Marabut. The first gymnosophists of Ethiopia most probably were nothing more.

TRANSLATOR.] My dress was changed with all due ceremony into the Turkish. They did just what they

pleased with me; nor had I the courage to object: or, to do myself more justice, I knew not what was

becoming of me, in so dreadful a disorder of all my faculties and feelings. There are other good Christians in

After the ceremony, I took my leave of the seraglio, to go and possess myself, under the name of Sidy Hali,

of an inferior office which Soliman had given me. I never saw the sultana more; but an eunuch of hers came

one day to look after me. He brought with him, as a present from his mistress, jewels to a very considerable

amount, accompanied with a letter, in which the lady assured me she should never forget my generous

compliance, in turning Mahometan to save her life. In point of fact, besides these rich gifts, lavished upon me

by Farrukhnaz, I obtained through her interest a more considerable employment than my first, and in the

course of six or seven years became one of the richest renegadoes in the town of Algiers.

You must be perfectly aware, that if I assisted at the prayers put up by the Mussulmen in their mosques, or

fulfilled the other observances of their religion, it was all a mere copy of my countenance. My inclination was

always uniform and determined, as to returning before my death into the bosom of our holy church; and with

this view I looked forward to withdrawing some time or other into Spain or Italy with the riches I should have

accumulated. But there seemed no reason whatever against enjoying life in the interval. I was established in a

magnificent mansion, with gardens of extent and beauty, a numerous train of slaves, and a wellappointed

equipage of pretty girls in my seraglio. Though the Mahometans are forbidden the use of wine in that

country, they are not backward for the most part in their stolen libations. As for me, my orgies were without

either a mask or a blush, after the manner of my brother renegadoes. I remember in particular two of my

bottle companions, with whom I often drank down the night before we rose from table. One was a Jew, and

the other an Arabian. I took them to be good sort of people; and, with that impression, lived in unconstrained

familiarity with them. One evening I invited them to sup at my house. On that very day a dog of mine died

it was a pet; we performed our pious ablutions on his lifeless clay, and buried him with all the solemn

obsequies attendant on a Mahometan funeral. This act of ours was not designed to turn the religion we

outwardly professed into ridicule; it was only to furnish ourselves with amusement, and give loose to a

ludicrous whim which struck us in the moment of jollity, that of paying the last offices of humanity to my

This action was, however, very near laying me by the heels. On the following day there came a fellow to my

house, saying, Master Sidy Hali, it is no laughing matter that induces me to pay you this visit. My employer,

the cadi, wants to have a word in your ear; be so good, if you please, as just to step to his office, without loss

of time. An Arabian merchant, who supped with you last night, has laid an information respecting a certain

act of irreverence perpetrated by you, on occasion of a dog which you buried. It is on that charge that I

summon you to appear this day before the judge; and in case of failure, you are hereby warned that you will

be the subject of a criminal prosecution. Away went he, leaving me to digest his discourse; but the citation

stuck in my throat, and took away my appetite. The Arabian had no reason whatever to set his face against

me; and I could not comprehend the meaning of the dog's trick the scoundrel had played me. The

circumstance at all events demanded my prompt attention. I knew the cadi's character: a saint on the outside,

but a sinner in his heart. Away went I therefore to wait on this judge, but not with empty pockets. He sent for

me into his private room, and began upon me in all the vehemence of pious indignation: You are a fellow

rejected out of paradise! a blasphemer of our holy law! a man loathsome and abominable to look upon! You

have performed the funeral service of a Mussulman over a dog. What an act of sacrilege! Is it thus, then, that

you reverence our most holy ceremonies? Have you only turned Mahometan to laugh at our devotions and

our rites? My honoured master, answered I, the Arabian who has told you such a cockandbull story is a

wolf in sheep's clothing; and more than that, he is even an accomplice in my crime, if it is one, to grant such

rest as to peaceparted souls to a faithful household servant, to an animal with more good qualities than half

the twolegged Mahometans out of Christendom. His attachment besides to people of merit and

consideration in the world was at once moral and sensible; and at his death he left several little tokens of

remembrance to his friends. By his last will and testament, he bequeathed his effects in the manner therein

mentioned, and did me the honour to name me for his executor. This old crony came in for twenty crowns,

that for thirty, and another for a cool hundred; but your worship is interested deeply in this instrument,

pursued I, drawing out my purse; he has left you residuary legatee, and here is the amount of the bequest. The

cadi's gravity could not but relax, after the posthumous kindness of his deceased friend; and he laughed

outright in the face of the mock executor. As we were alone, there was no occasion to make wry mouths at

the purse, and my acquittal was pronounced in these words: Go, Master Sidy Hali; it was a very pious act of

yours, to enlarge the obsequies of a dog, who had so manly a fellowfeeling for honest folks.

By this device I got out of the scrape; and if the hint did not increase my religion, it doubled my

circumspection. I was determined no longer to open either my cellar or my soul in presence of Arabian or

Jew. My bottle companion henceforward was a young gentleman from Leghorn, who had the happiness of

being my slave. His name was Azarini. I was of another kidney from renegadoes in general, who impose

greater hardships on their Christian slaves than do the Turks themselves. All my captives waited for the

period of their ransom, without any impatient hankering after home. My behaviour to them was, in truth, so

gentle and fatherly, that many of them assured me they were more afraid of changing their master than

anxious after their liberty; whatever magic that word may have to the ears of those who have felt what it is to

One day the bashaw's corsairs came into port with considerable prizes. Their cargo amounted to more than a

hundred slaves of either sex, carried off from the Spanish coast. Soliman retained but a very small number,

and all the rest were sold. I happened to go to market, and bought a Spanish girl, ten or twelve years old. She

cried as if her heart would break, and looked the picture of despair. It seemed strange, that at her age slavery

should make such an impression on her. I told her, in Castilian, to combat with her terrors: and assured her

that she was fallen into the hands of a master who had not put off humanity when he took up the turban. The

little mourner, not initiated in the trade of grief, pursued the subject of her lamentations without listening to

me. Her whole soul seemed to be breathed in her sighs; she descanted on her wretched fate, and exclaimed

from time to time in softened accents: O my mother, why were we ever parted? I could bear my lot with

patience, might we share it together. With these lamentations on her lips, she turned round towards a woman

of from fiveandforty to fifty, standing at the distance of several paces, and waiting with her eyes fixed to

the ground, in a determined, sullen silence, till she met with a purchaser. I asked my young bargain if the lady

she was looking at was her mother. Alas! she is, indeed, sir, replied the girl; for the love of God, do not let me

be parted from her. Well, then, my distressed little damsel, said I, if it will give you any pleasure, there is no

more to do than to settle you both in the same quarters, and then you will give over your murmuring. On the

very moment I went up to the mother, with the intention of cheapening her; but no sooner did I cast my eyes

on her face, than I knew again, with what emotion you may guess! the very form and pressure of Lucinda.

Just heaven! said I within myself; this is my mother! Nature whispers it in my ear, and can I doubt her

evidence? On her part, whether a keen resentment of her woes pointed out an enemy in every object on which

she glanced, or else it might be my dress that disfigured me; . . . . or else I might have grown a little older in

about a dozen years since she had seen me . . . . but however historians may account for it, she did not know

When they were safely lodged, I wished to surprise them with the pleasure of ascertaining who I was.

Madam, said I to Lucinda, is it possible that my features should not strike you? 'Tis true, I wear whiskers and

a turban: but is Raphael less your son for that? My mother thrilled through all her frame at these words,

looked at me with an eager gaze, my whole self rushed into her recollection, and into each other's arms we

affectionately flew. I then caressed, in moderated ecstasies, her daughter, who perhaps knew as much about

having a brother as I did about having a sister. Tell the truth, said I to my mother; in all your theatrical

discoveries, did you ever meet with one so truly natural and dramatic as this? My dear son, answered she, in

an accent of sorrow, the first sight of you after so long a separation overwhelmed me with joy, but the

revulsion was only the more deeply distressing. In what condition, alas! do I again behold you? My own

slavery is a thousand times less revolting to my feelings than the disgraceful habiliments . . . . Heyday! By all

the powers, madam, interrupted I with a hearty laugh, I am quite delighted with your newlyacquired

morality: this is excellent in an actress. Well! well! as heaven is my judge, my honoured mamma, you are

mightily improved in your principles, if my transformation astounds your religious eyesight. So far from

quarrelling with your turban, consider me rather as an actor, playing a Turkish character on the stage of the

world. Though a conformist, I am just as much a Mussulman as when I was in Spain; nay, in the bottom of

my heart, I never was a more firm believer in our Christian creed than at the present moment. When you shall

become acquainted with all my hairbreadth escapes, since I have been domesticated in this country, you will

not be rigorous in your censure. Love has been the cause of my apostasy, and he who worships at that shrine

may be absolved from all other infidelities. I have a little of my mother in me, take my word for it. Another

reason besides ought to moderate your disgust at seeing me under my present circumstances. You were

expecting to experience a harsh captivity in Algiers, but you find in your protector a son, with all the

tenderness and reverence befitting his relation to you, and rich enough to maintain you here in plenty and

comfort, till a favourable opportunity offers of returning with safety into Spain. Admit, therefore, the force of

My dear son, said Lucinda, since you fully intend one day to go back into your own country, and to throw off

the mantle of Mahomet, my scruples are all satisfied. Thanks to heaven, continued she, I shall be able to carry

back your sister Beatrice safe and sound into Castile. Yes, madam, exclaimed I, so you may. We will all

three, as soon as the season may serve, go and throw ourselves into the bosom of our family: for I make no

matter of doubt but you have still in Spain other indisputable evidences of your prolific powers. No, said my

mother, I have only you two, the offspring of my body; and you are to know that Beatrice is the fruit of a

marriage, manufactured in as workmanlike a manner as any within the pale of the church. And pray, for what

reason, replied I, might not my little sister have been just as contraband as myself? How did you ever work

yourself up to the formidable resolution of marrying? I have heard you say a hundred times, in my childhood,

that there was no benefit of clergy for a pretty woman who could commit such an offence as to take up with a

husband. Times and seasons ebb and flow, my son, rejoined she. Men of the most resolute character may be

shaken in their purposes: and do you require that a woman should be inflexible in hers? But I will now relate

to you the story of my life since your departure from Madrid. She then began the following recital, which will

never be obliterated from my memory. I will not withhold from you so curious a narrative.

It is nearly thirteen years, if you recollect, said my mother, since you left young Leganez. Just at that time, the

Duke of Medina Coeli told me that he had a mind to sup with me one evening in private. The day was fixed. I

made preparations for his reception: he came, and I pleased him. He required from me the sacrifice of all his

rivals, past, present, and to come. I came into his terms, in the hope of being well paid for my complaisance.

There was no deficiency on that score. On the very next morning, I received presents from him, which were

followed up by a long train of kindred attentions. I was afraid of not being able to hold in my chains a man of

his exalted rank: and this apprehension was the better founded, because it was a matter of notoriety, that he

had escaped from the clutches of several celebrated beauties, whose chains he had worn, only for the purpose

of breaking. But for all that, so far from surfeiting on the relish of my kindness, his appetite grew by what it

fed on. In short, I found out the secret of entertaining him, and impounding his heart, naturally roving, so that

He had now been my admirer for three months, and I had every reason to flatter myself that the arrangement

would be lasting, when a lady of my acquaintance and myself happened to go to an assembly, where the

duchess his wife was of the party. We were invited to a concert of vocal and instrumental music. We

accidentally seated ourselves too near the duchess, who took it into her head to be affronted, that I should

exhibit my person in a place where she was. She sent me word by one of her women, that she should take it

as a favour if I would quit the room immediately. I sent back an answer, just as saucy as the message. The

duchess, irritated to fury, laid her wrongs before her husband, who came to me in person, and said: Retire,

Lucinda. Though noblemen of the first rank attach themselves to pretty playthings like yourself, it is highly

unbecoming in you to forget your proper distance. If we love you better than our wives, we honour our wives

more than you: whenever, therefore, your insolence shall go so far as to set yourselves up for their rivals

under their very noses, you will always be mortified, and made to know your places.

Fortunately the duke held his cruel language to me in so low a tone of voice as not to have been overheard by

the people about us. I withdrew in deep confusion, and cried with vexation at having incurred such an affront.

At once, to crown my shame and aggravate my chastisement, the actors and actresses got hold of the story on

the very same evening. To do them justice, these gentry must contrive to entertain a familiar spirit, whose

business is to fly about, and whisper in the ear of one whatever falls out amiss to the other. Suppose, for

instance, that an actor gets drunk and makes a fool of himself; or an actress gets hold of a rich cully and

makes a fool of him! The greenroom is sure to ring with all the particulars, and a few more than are true. All

my kindred of the sock and buskin were informed at once of what had happened at the concert, and a blessed

life they led me with their quips and quiddities. Never was there charity like theirs. Without beginning at

home, heaven only knows where it ends! But I held myself too high to be affected by their jibes and jeers: nor

did even the loss of the Duke de Medina Coeli hang heavy on my spirits; for true it was, I never saw him

more at my toilette, but learned, a very short time after, that he had got into the trammels of a little warbler.

When a theatrical lady has the good luck to be in fashion, she may change her lover as often as her petticoat:

and one noble fool, should he even recover his wits at the end of three days, serves excellently well for a

decoy to his successor. No sooner was it buzzed about Madrid, that the duke had raised the siege, than a new

host of wouldbe conquerors appeared before the trenches. The very rivals whom I had sacrificed to his

wishes, looking at my charms through the magnifying medium of delay and disappointment, came back again

in crowds to encounter new caprices; to say nothing of a thousand fresh hearts, ready to bargain on the mere

report of my being to let. I had never been so exclusively the mode. Of all the men who put in for being

cajoled by me, a portly German, belonging to the Duke of Ossuna's household, seemed to bid highest. Not

that his personal attractions were by any means the most catching; but then there were a thousand amiable

pistoles on the list of candidates, scraped together by perquisites in his master's service, and turned adrift with

the prodigality of a prince, in the hope of becoming my favoured lover. This fat pigeon to be plucked was by

name Brutandorf. As long as his pockets were lined, his reception was warm: empty purses meet.with

fastened doors. The principles on which my friendship rested were not altogether to his taste. He came to the

play to look after me during the performance. I was behind the scenes. It was his humour to load me with

reproaches; it was mine to laugh in his face. This provoked his boorish wrath, and he gave me a box on the

ear, like a clumsy fisted German as he was. I set up a loud scream: the business of the stage was suspended.

I came forward to the front, and, addressing the Duke of Ossuna, who was at the play on that occasion with

his lady duchess, begged his protection from the German gallantry of his establishment. The duke gave orders

for our proceeding with the piece, and intimated that he would hear the parties after the curtain had dropped.

At the conclusion of the play I presented myself in all the dreary pomp of tragedy before the duke, and laid

open my griefs in all the majesty of woe. As for my German pugilist, his defence was on a level with his

provocation; so far from being sorry for what he had done, his fingers itched to give me another dressing. The

cause being heard pro and con, the Duke of Ossuna said to his Scandinavian savage: Brutandorf I dismiss you

from my service, and beg never to see anything more of you, not because you have given a box on the ear to

an actress, but for your failure in respect to your master and mistress, in having presumed to interrupt the

This decision was a bitter pill for me to swallow. It was high treason against my histrionic majesty, that the

German was not turned off on the ground of having insulted me. It seemed difficult to conceive the

possibility of a greater crime than that of insulting a principal actress: and where crimes are parallel,

punishments should tally. The retribution in this case would have been exemplary; and I expected no less.

This unpleasant occurrence undeceived me, and proved, to my mortification, that the public distinguished

between the actors and the personages they may chance to enact. On this conviction, my pride revolted at the

theatre: I resolved to give up my engagements to go and live at a distance from Madrid. I fixed on the city of

Valencia for the place of my retreat, and went thither under a feigned character, with a property of twenty

thousand ducats in money and jewels: a sum in my mind more than sufficient to maintain me for the

remainder of my days, since it was my purpose to lead a retired life. I rented a small house at Valencia, and

limited my establishment to a female servant and a page, who were as ignorant of my birth, parentage, and

education, as the rest of the town. I gave myself out for the widow of an officer belonging to the king's

household, and intimated that I had made choice of Valencia for my residence, on the report that it was one of

the most agreeable neighbourhoods in Spain. I saw very little company, and maintained so reserved a

deportment, that there never was the slightest suspicion of my having been an actress. Yet, not withstanding

all the pains I took to hide myself from the garish eye of day, I had worse success against the piercing ken of

a gentleman, who had a country seat near Paterna. He was of an ancient family, in person genteel and manly,

from fiveandthirty to forty years of age, nobly connected, but scandalously in debt; a contradiction in the

vocabulary of honour, neither more unaccountable nor uncommon in the kingdom of Valencia, than what

This gentleman of a generation or two before the present, finding my person to his liking, was desirous of

knowing if in other respects I was a commodity for his market. He set every engine at work to inquire into the

most minute particulars, and had the pleasure to learn from general report, that I was a warm widow with a

comfortable jointure, and a person little, if anything, the worse for wear. It struck him that this was just the

match; so that in a very short time an old lady came to my house, telling me, from him, that with equal

admiration of my virtues and my charms, he laid himself and his fortune at my feet, and was ready to lead me

to the altar, if I could condescend so far as to become his wife. I required three days to make up my mind on

the subject. In this interval, I made inquiries about the gentleman; and hearing a good character of him,

notwithstanding the deranged state of his finances, it was my determination to marry him without more ado,

Don Manuel de Xerica, for that was my husband's name, took me immediately after the ceremony to his

castle, which had an air of antiquity highly flattering to his family pride. He told a story about one of his

ancestors who built it in days of yore, and because it was not founded the day before yesterday, jumped to a

conclusion that there was not a more ancient house in Spain than that of Xerica. But nobility, like perishable

merchandise, will run to decay; the castle, shored up on this side and on that, was in the very agony of

tumbling to pieces: what a buttress for Don Manuel and for his old walls was his marriage with me! More

than half my savings were laid out on repairs; and the residue was wanted to set us going in a genteel style

among our country neighbours. Behold me, then, you who can believe it, landed on a new planet, transformed

into the presiding genius of a castle, the Lady Bountiful of my parish: our stage machinery could never have

furnished such a change! I was too good an actress not to have supported my new rank and dignity with

appropriate grace. I assumed high airs, theatrical grandeurs, a most dignified strut and demeanour; all which

made the bumpkins conceive a wonderful idea of my exalted origin. How would they not have tickled their

fancies at my expense, had they known the real truth of the case! The gentry of the neighbourhood would

have scoffed at me most unmercifully, and the country people would have been much more chary of the

It was now near six years that I had lived very happily with Don Manuel, when he ended ways, means, and

life together. My legacy consisted of a broken fortune to splice, and your sister Beatrice, then more than four

years old, to maintain. The castle, which was our only tangible resource, was unfortunately mortgaged to

several creditors, the principal of whom was one Bernard Astuto. Cunning by name, and cunning by nature!

He practised as an attorney at Valencia, and bore his faculties in all the infamy of pettifogging; law and

equity conspired in his person to push the trade of cozening and swindling to the utmost extremity. To think

of falling into the clutches of such a creditor! A gentleman's property under the gripe of such a claw as this

attorney's affords much the same sport as a lamb to a wolf or a dove to a kite. Nearly after the fashion of

these beasts and birds of prey, did Signor Astuto, when informed of my husband's death, hover over his

victim, concealing his fell purpose under the ambush of the law. The whole estate would have been

swallowed up in pleadings, affidavits, demurrers, and rejoinders, but for the light thrown upon the

proceedings by my lucky star; under whose influence the plaintiff was turned at once into defendant, and was

left without a reply to the arguments of these all powerful eyes. I got to the blind side of him in an

interview, which I contrived during the progress of our litigation. Nothing was wanting on my part, I own it

frankly, to fill him brimful of the tender passion; an ardent longing to save my goods, chattels, and domain,

made me practise upon him, to my own disgust, that system of coquettish tactics and flirtation which had

drawn so many former fools into an ambuscade. Yet, with all the resources of a veteran, I was very near

letting the attorney escape. He was so barricaded by mouldy parchments, so immured in actions and

informations, as scarcely to seem susceptible of any love but the love of law. The truth, however, was, that

this moping pettifogger, this porer over ponderous abridgments, this scrawler of acts and deeds, had more

young blood in him than I was aware of, and a trick of looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He

professed to be a novice in the art of courtship. My whole heart and soul, madam, said he, have been wedded

to my profession; and the consequence has been, that the uses and customs of gallantry have seemed weary,

stale, flat, and unprofitable to me. But though not a man of outward show, I am well furnished with the stock

in trade of love. To come to the point at once, if you can resolve in your mind to marry me, we will make a

grand bonfire of the whole lawsuit; and I will give the goby to those rascally creditors, who have joined

issue with me in our attack upon your estate. You shall have the life interest, and your daughter the reversion.

So good a bargain for Beatrice and myself would not allow of any wavering: I closed without delay on the

conditions. The attorney kept his word most miraculously: he turned short round upon the other creditors,

defeated them with the very weapons himself had furnished with their joint campaign, and secured me in the

possession of my house and lands. It was probably the first time in his life that he had taken up the cause of

Thus did I become the honoured wife of an attorney, without losing my rank as the lady of the manor. But

this incongruous marriage ruined me in the esteem of the gentry about Valencia. The women of quality

looked upon me as a person who had lowered herself, and refused any longer to visit me. This inevitably

threw me on the acquaintance of the tradespeople; a circumstance which could not do otherwise than hurt my

feelings a little at first, because I had been accustomed, for the last six years, to associate only with ladies of

the higher classes. But it was in vain to fret about it; and I soon found my level. I got most intimately

acquainted with the wives of my husband's brethren of the quill and brief. Their characters were not a little

entertaining. There was an absurdity in their manners, which tickled me to the very soul. These trumpery fine

ladies held themselves up for something far above the common run. Welladay! said I to myself, every now

and then, when they forgot the blue bag: this is the way of the world! Every one fancies himself to be

something vastly superior to his neighbour. I thought we actresses only did not know our places; women at

the lower end of private life, as far as I see, are just as absurd in their pretensions. I should like, by way of

check upon their presumption, to propose a law, that family pictures and pedigrees should be hung up in

every house. Were the situation left to the choice of the owner, the deuce is in it if these legal gentry would

After four years passed in the holy state of wedlock, Signor Bernardo d'Astuto fell sick, and went the way of

all flesh. We had no family. Between my settlement and what I was worth before, I found myself a

wellendowed widow. I had too the reputation of being so; and on this report, a Sicilian gentleman, by name

Colifichini, determined to stick in my skirts, and either ruin or marry me. The alternative was kindly left to

my own choice. He was come from Palermo to see Spain, and, after having satisfied his curiosity, was

waiting, as he said, at Valencia for an opportunity of taking his passage back to Sicily. The spark was not

quite fiveandtwenty; of an elegant, though diminutive person; . . . . in short, his figure absolutely haunted

me. He found the means of getting to the speech of me in private; and, I will own it to you frankly, I fell

distractedly in love with him from the moment of our very first interview. On his part, the little knave

flounced over head and ears in admiration of my charms. I do really think, God forgive me for it, that we

should have been married out of hand, if the death of the attorney, whose funeral baked meats were scarcely

cold enough to have furnished forth the marriage tables, would have allowed me to contract a new

engagement at so short a warning. But since I had got into the matrimonial line, it was necessary that where

the church makes the feast, the devil should not send cooks; I therefore took care always to season my

Thus did we agree to delay our coming together for a time, out of a tender regard to appearances. Colifichini,

in the mean time, devoted all his attentions to me: his passion, far from languishing, seemed to become more

a part of himself from day to day. The poor lad was not too flush of ready money. This struck my

observation; and he was no longer at a loss for his little pocket expenses. Besides being very nearly twice his

age, I recollected having laid the men under contribution in my younger days; so that I looked upon what I

was then lavishing as a sort of restitution, which balanced my debtor and creditor account, and made me quits

with my conscience. We waited, as patiently as our frailty would allow, for the period when widows may in

decency so far surmount their grief as to try their luck again. When the happy morning rose, we presented

ourselves before the altar, where we plighted our faith to each other by oaths the most solemn and binding.

We then retired to my castle, where I may truly say that we lived for two years, less as husband and wife than

as tender and unfettered lovers. But alas l such an union, so happy and sentimental, was not long to be the lot

At this passage in her history, I interrupted my mother. Heyday l madam, your third husband dispatched

already? You must he a most deadly taking. What do you mean? answered she: is it for me to dispute the will

of heaven, and lengthen the days parcelled out to every son of earth? If I have lost three husbands, it was

none of my fault. Two of them cost me many a salt tear. If I buried any with dry eyes, it was the attorney. As

that was merely a match of interest, I was easily reconciled to the loss of him. But to return to Colifichini, I

was going to tell you, that some months after his death, I had a mind to go and take possession of a country

house near Palermo, which he had settled on me as a jointure, by our marriage contract. I took my passage for

Sicily with my daughter; but we were taken on the voyage by Algerine corsairs. This city was our destination.

Happily for us, you happened to he at the market where we were put up for sale. Had it been otherwise, we

must have fallen into the hands of some barbarian purchaser, who would have used us ill; and we probably

might have passed our whole life in slavery, nor would you ever have heard of us.

Such was my mother's story. To return to my own, gentlemen, I gave her the best apartment in my house,

with the liberty of living after her own fashion; which was a circumstance very agreeable to her taste. She had

a confirmed habit of loving, brought to such a system by so many repeated experiments, that it was

impossible for her to do without either a gallant or a husband. At first she looked with favour on some of my

slaves; but Hali Pegelin, a Greek renegado, who sometimes came and called upon us, soon drew all her

glances on himself. She conceived a stronger passion for him than she had ever done for Colifichini: and such

was her aptitude for pleasing the men, that she found the way to wind herself about the heart of this man also.

I seemed as if unconscious of their good understanding; being then intent only on my return into Spain. The

bashaw had already given me leave to fit out a vessel, for the purpose of sweeping the sea and committing

acts of piracy. This armament was my sole object. Just a week before it was completed, I said to Lucinda:

Madam, we shall take our leave of Algiers almost immediately; so that you will bid a long farewell to an

My mother turned pale at these words, and stood silent and motionless. My surprise was extreme. What do I

see? said I to her: whence comes it that you present such an image of terror and despair? My design was to

fill you with transport; but the effect of my intelligence seems only to overwhelm you with affliction. I

thought to have been thanked for my welcome news; and hastened with eagerness to tell you that all is ready

for our departure. Are you no longer in the mind to go back into Spain? No, my son; Spain no longer has any

charms for me, answered my mother. It has been the scene of all my sorrows, and I have turned my back on it

for ever. What do I hear? exclaimed I in an agony: Ah! tell me rather, that it is a fatal passion which alienates

you from your native country. Just heavens! what a change! When you landed here, every object that met

your eyes was hateful to them, but Hali Pegelin has given another colour to your fancy. I do not deny it,

replied Lucinda: I love that renegado, and mean to take him for my fourth husband. What an idea! interrupted

I with horror: you, to marry a Mussulman! You forget yourself to be a Christian, or rather have hitherto been

one only in name and not in heart. Ah! my dear mother, what a futurity do you present to my imagination!

You are running headlong to your eternal ruin. You are going to do voluntarily, and from impure motives,

I urged many other arguments in the same strain, to turn her aside from her purpose: but all my eloquence

was wasted; she had made up her mind to her future destiny. Not satisfied with following the bent of her base

inclinations, and leaving her son to go and live with this renegado, she had even formed a design to settle

Beatrice in her own family. This I opposed with all my might and main. Ah! wretched Lucinda, said I, if

nothing is capable of keeping you within the limits of your duty, at least rush on perdition alone; confine with

in yourself the fury which possesses you; cast not a young innocent headlong over a precipice, though you

yourself may venture on the leap. Lucinda quitted my presence in moody silence. It struck me that a remnant

of reason still enlightened her, and that she would not obstinately persevere in requiring her daughter to be

given up to her. How little did I know of my mother! One of my slaves said to me two days afterwards: Sir,

take care of yourself. A captive belonging to Pegelin has just let me into a secret, of which you cannot too

soon avail yourself. Your mother has changed her religion; and as a punishment upon you for having refused

Beatrice to her wishes, it is her purpose to acquaint the bashaw with your flight. I could not for a moment

doubt but what Lucinda was the woman to do just what my slave had said she would. The lady had given me

manifold opportunities of studying her character; and it was sufficiently evident that by dint of playing

bloody parts in tragedy, she had familiarized herself with the guilty scenes of real life. It would not in the

least have gone against her nature to have got me burned alive; nor probably would she have been more

affected by my exit after that fashion, than by the winding up of a dramatic tale.

The warning of my slave, therefore, was not to be neglected. My embarkation was hastened on. I took some

Turks on board, according to the practice of the Algerine corsairs when going on a piratical expedition: but I

engaged no more than was necessary to blind the eyes of jealousy, and weighed anchor from the port as soon

as possible, with all my slaves and my sister Beatrice. You will do right to suppose, that I did not forget, in

that moment of anxiety, to pack up my whole stock of money and jewels, amounting probably to the worth of

six thousand ducats. When we were fairly out at sea, we began by securing the Turks. They were easily

mastered, as my slaves outnumbered them. We had so favourable a wind, that we made the coast of Italy in a

very short time. Without let or hindrance, we got into the harbour of Leghorn, where I thought the whole city

must have come out to see us land. The father of my slave Azarini, either accidentally or from curiosity,

happened to be among the gazers. He looked with all his eyes at my captives, as they came ashore; but

though his object was to discover his lost son among the number, it was with little hope of so fortunate a

result. But how powerful is the plea of nature! What transports, expressed by mutual embraces, followed the

As soon as Azarini had acquainted his father who I was, and what brought me to Leghorn, the old man

obliged me, as well as Beatrice, to accept of an apartment in his house. I shall pass over in silence the

description of a thousand ceremonies, necessary to be gone through, in order to my return into the bosom of

the church; suffice it to say, that I forswore Mahometanism with much more sincerity than I had pledged

myself to it. After having entirely purged myself from my Algerine leaven, I sold my ship, and set all my

slaves at liberty. As for the Turks, they were committed to prison at Leghorn, to be exchanged against

Christians. I received kind attention in abundance from the Azarini family: indeed, the young man married

my sister Beatrice, who, to speak the truth, was no bad match for him, being a gentleman's daughter, and

inheriting the castle of Xerica, which my mother had taken care to let out to a rich tanner of Paterna, when

From Leghorn, after having staid there some time, I departed for Florence, a town I had a strong desire to see.

I did not go thither without letters of recommendation. Azarini the father had connections at the grand duke's

court, and introduced me to them as a Spanish gentleman related to his family. I tacked don to my name, in

honest rivalry of impudence with other low Spaniards, who take up that travelling title of honour without

compunction, when far enough from home to set detection at defiance. Boldly then did I dub myself Don

Raphael; and appeared at court with suitable splendour, on the strength of what I had brought from Algiers, to

keep my nobility from starving. The high personages, to whom old Azarini had written in my favour, gave

out in their circle that I was a person of quality; so that with this testimony, and a natural knack I had of

giving myself airs, the deuce must have been in it if I could not have passed muster for a man of some

consequence. I soon got to be hand in glove with the principal nobility; and they presented me to the grand

duke. I had the good fortune to make myself agreeable. It then became an object with me to pay court to that

prince, and to study his humour. I sucked in with greedy ear all that his most experienced courtiers said about

him, and by their conversation fathomed all his peculiarities. Among other things, he encouraged a play of

wit; was fond of good stories and lively repartees. On this hint I formed myself. Every morning I wrote down

in my pocketbook such anecdotes as I meant to rack off in the course of the day. My stock was considerably

extensive; so that I was a walking budget of balderdash. Yet even my estate in nonsense required economy;

and I began to get out at elbows, so as to be reduced to borrow from myself, and mortgage my resources

twenty times over: but when the shallow current of wit and wisdom was nearly at its summer drought, a

torrent of matteroffact lies gave new force to the exhausted stream of quibble. Intrigues which never had

been intrigued, and practical jokes which had never been played off were the tools I worked with, and exactly

to the level of the grand duke: nay, what often happens to dull dealers in inextinguishable vivacity, the

mornings were spent in finaciering those hinds of conversation, which were to be drawn upon after dinner, as

I had even the impudence to set up for a poet, and made my brokenwinded muse trot to the praises of the

prince. I allow candidly that the verses were execrable; but then they were quite good enough for their

readers; and it remains a doubt whether, if they had been better, the grand duke would not have thrown them

into the fire. They seemed to be just what he would have written upon himself. In short, it was impossible to

miss the proper style on such a subject But whatever might be my merit as a poet, the prince, by little and

little, took such a liking to my person, as gave occasion of jealousy to his courtiers. They tried to find out

who I was. This, however, was beyond their compass. All they could learn was, that I had been a renegado.

This was whispered forthwith in the prince's ear, in the hopes of hurting me. Not that it succeeded: on the

contrary, the grand duke one day commanded me to give him a faithful account of my adventures at Algiers. I

obeyed; and the recital, without reserve on my part, contributed more than any other of my stories to his

Don Raphael, said he, after I had ended my narrative, I have a real regard for you, and mean to give you a

proof of it, which will place my sincerity beyond a doubt Henceforth you are admitted into my most private

confidence, as the first fruits of which, you are to know that one of my ministers has a wife, with whom I am

in love. She is the most enchanting creature at court; but at the same time the most impregnable. Shut up in

her own household, exclusively attached to a husband who idolizes her, she seems to be ignorant of the

combustion her charms have kindled in Florence. You will easily conceive the difficulty of such a conquest

And yet this epitome of loveliness, so deaf to all the whispers of common seduction, has sometimes listened

to my sighs. I have found the means of speaking to her without witnesses. She is not unacquainted with my

sentiments. I do not flatter myself with having warmed her into love; she has given me no reason to form so

sweet a conjecture. Yet I will not despair of pleasing her by my constancy, and by the cautious conduct, even

My passion for this lady, continued he, is known only to herself. Instead of pursuing my game wantonly, and

overleaping the rights of my subjects like a true sovereign, I conceal from all the world the knowledge of my

love. This delicacy seems due to Mascarini, the husband of my beloved mistress. His zeal and attachment to

me, his services and honesty, oblige me to act in this business with the closest secrecy and circumspection. I

will not plunge a dagger into the bosom of this illstarred husband, by declaring myself a suitor to his wife.

Would he might for ever be insensible, were it within possibility, to the secret flame which devours me: for I

am persuaded that he would die of grief, were he to know the circumstances I have just now confided to you.

I therefore veil my pursuit in impenetrable darkness; and have determined to make use of you, for the purpose

of conveying to Lucretia the merit of the sacrifices my delicacy imposes on my feelings. Of these you shall

be the interpreter. I doubt not but you will acquit yourself to a marvel of your commission. Contrive to be

intimate with Mascarini; make a point of worming yourself into his friendship. Then an introduction to his

family will be easy; and you will secure to yourself the liberty of conversing freely with his wife. This is what

I require from you, and what I feel assured that you will execute with all the dexterity and discretion

I promised the grand duke to do my utmost, in furtherance of his good opinion, and in aid of his success with

the object of his desires. I kept my word without loss of time. No pains were spared to get into Mascarini's

good graces; and the design was not difficult to accomplish. Delighted to find his friendship sought by a man

possessing the affections of the prince, he advanced half way to meet my overtures. His house was always

open to me, my intercourse with his lady was unrestrained; and I have no hesitation in affirming my measures

to have been taken so well, as to have precluded the slightest suspicion of the embassy intrusted to my

management. It is true, he had but a small share of the Italian jealousy, relying as he did on the virtue of his

Lucretia; so that he often shut himself up in his closet, and left me alone with her. I entered at once into the

pith and marrow of my subject. The grand duke's passion was my topic with the lady; and I told her that the

motive of my visits was only to plead for that prince. She did not seem to be over head and ears in love with

him; and yet, methought, vanity forbade her to frown decisively on his addresses. She took a pleasure in

listening to his sighs, without sighing in concert. A certain propriety of heart she had; but then she was a

woman; and it was obvious that her rigour was giving way insensibly to the triumphant image of a sovereign,

bound in the fetters of her resistless charms. In short, the prince had good reason to flatter himself that he

might dispense with the illbreeding of a Tarquin, and yet bend Lucretia to a compliance with his longings.

An incident, however, the most unexpected in the annals of romance, blasted his flattering prospects; in what

I am naturally free and easy with the women. This constitutional assurance, whether a blessing or a curse,

was ripened into inveterate habit among the Turks. Lucretia was a pretty woman. I forgot that I was courting

by proxy, and assumed the tone of a principal. Nothing could exceed the warmth and gallantry with which I

offered my services to the lady. Far from appearing offended at my boldness, or silencing me by a resentful

answer, she only said with a sarcastic smile: Own the truth, Don Raphael; the grand duke has pitched upon a

very faithful and zealous agent. You serve him with an integrity not sufficiently to be commended. Madam,

said I in the same strain, let us not examine things with too much nicety. A truce, I beseech you, with moral

discussions; they are not of my element: good honest passion tallies better with our natures. I do not believe

myself, after all, the first prince's confidant who has ousted his master in an affair of gallantry; your great

lords have often dangerous rivals, in more humble messengers than myself. That may be, replied Lucretia:

but a haughty temper stands with me in the place of virtue, and no one under the degree of a prince shall ever

sully these charms. Regulate your behaviour accordingly, added she in a tone of serious severity, and let us

change the subject. I willingly bury your presumption in oblivion, provided you never hold similar discourse

Though this was a comment of some importance on my text, and ought to have been heedfully conned over, it

was no bar to my still entertaining Mascarini's wife with my passion. I even pressed her with more

importunity than heretofore, for a kind consent to my tender entreaties; and was rash enough to feel my

ground, by some little personal freedoms. The lady then, offended at my words, and still more at my

Mahometan quips and cranks, gave a complete set down to my assurance. She threatened to acquaint the

grand duke with my impertinence; and declared she would make a point of his punishing me as I deserved.

These menaces bristled up my spirit in return. My love turned at once into hatred, and determined me to

revenge myself for the contempt with which Lucretia had treated me. I went in quest of her husband; and

after having bound him by oath not to betray me, I informed him of his wile's correspondence with the prince,

and failed not to represent her as distractedly enamoured of him, by way of heightening the interest of the

scene. The minister, lest the plot should become too intricately entangled, shut his wife up, without any law

but his own will, in a secret apartment, whore he placed her under the strict guard of confidential persons.

While she was thus kept at bay by the watchdogs of jealousy, who prevented her from acquainting the grand

duke with her situation, I announced to that prince, with a melancholy air, that he must think no longer of

Lucretia. I told him that Mascarini had doubtless discovered all, since he had taken it into his head to keep a

guard over his wife: that I could not conceive what had induced him to suspect me, as I flattered myself with

having always behaved according to the most approved rules of discretion in such cases. The lady might, I

suggested, have been beforehand, and owned all to her husband; and had perhaps, in concert with him,

suffered herself to be immured, in order to lie hid from a pursuit so dangerous to her virtue. The prince

appeared deeply afflicted at my relation. I was not unmoved by his distress, and repented more than once of

what I had done; but it was too late to retract. Besides, I must acknowledge, a spiteful joy tingled in my veins,

when I meditated on the distressed condition of the disdainful fair, who had spurned my vows.

I was feeding with impunity on the pleasure of revenge, so palatable to all the world, but most of all to

Spaniards, when one day the grand duke, chatting with five or six nobles of his court and myself, said to us:

In what manner would you judge it fitting for a man to be punished, who should have abused the confidence

of his prince, and designed to step in between him and his mistress? The best way, said one of the courtiers,

would be to have him torn to pieces by four horses. Another gave it as his verdict, that he should be soundly

beaten, till he died under the blows of the executioner. The most tenderhearted and merciful of these

Italians, with comparative lenity towards the culprit, wished only just to admonish him of his fault, by

throwing him from the top of a tower to the bottom. And Don Raphael, resumed the grand duke after a pause,

what is his opinion? The Spaniards, in all likelihood, would improve upon our Italian severity, is a case of

I fully understood, as you may well suppose, that Mascarini had not kept his oath, or that his wife had

devised the means of acquainting the prince with what had passed between her and me. My countenance

sufficiently betokened my inward agitation. But for all that, suppressing as well as I could my rising emotion

and alarm, I replied to the grand duke in a steady tone of voice My lord, the Spaniards are more generous;

under such circumstances, they would pardon the unworthy betrayer of his trust, and by that act of unmerited

goodness would kindle in his soul an everlasting abhorrence of his own villany. Yes, truly, said the prince,

and I fed in my own breast a similar spirit of forbearance. Let the traitor then be pardoned; since I have

myself only to blame for having given my confidence to a man of whom I had no knowledge, but, on the

contrary, much ground of suspicion, according to the current of common report. Don Raphael, added he, my

revenge shall be confined to this single interdict. Quit my dominions immediately, and never appear again in

my presence. I withdrew in all haste, less hurt at my disgrace, than delighted to have got off so cheaply. The

very next day I embarked in a Barcelona ship, just setting sail from the port of Leghorn on its return.

At this period of his history I interrupted Don Raphael to the following effect. For a man of shrewdness,

methinks you were not a little off your guard, in trusting yourself at Florence for even so short a time, after

having discovered the prince's love of Lucretia to Mascarini. You might well have foreboded that the grand

duke would not be long in getting to the knowledge of your duplicity. Your observation is very just, answered

the well matched son of so eccentric a mother as Lucinda: and for that reason, not trusting to the minister's

promise of screening me from his master's indignation, it had been my intention to disappear without taking

I got safe to Barcelona, continued he, with the remnant of the wealth I had brought from Algiers; but the

greater part had been squandered at Florence in enacting the Spanish gentleman. I did not stay long in

Catalonia. Madrid was the dear place of my nativity, and I had a longing desire to see it again, which I

satisfied as soon as possible; for mine was not a temper to stand parleying with its own inclinations. On my

arrival in town, I chanced to take up my abode in a readyfurnished lodging, where dwelt a lady, by name

Camilla. Though at some distance from her teens, she was a very spiritstirring creature, as Signor Gil Blas

will hear me out in saying; for he fell in with her at Valladolid nearly about the same time. Her parts were

still more extraordinary than her beauty; and never had a lady with a character to let a happier talent of

inveigling fools to their ruin. But she was not like those selfish jilts, who put out the cullibility of their lovers

to usury. The pillage of the plodding merchant, or the grave family man, was squandered upon the first

We loved one another from the first moment, and the conformity of our tempers bound us so closely together,

that we soon lived on the footing of joint property. The amount, in sober sadness, was little better than a

cypher, and a few good dinners more reduced it to that ignoble negative of number. We were each of us

thinking, as the deuce would have it, of our mutual pleasures, without profiting in the least by those happy

dispositions of ours for living at the expense of other folks. Want at last gave a keener edge to our wits, which

indulgence had blunted. My dear Raphael, said Camilla, let us carry the war into the enemy's quarters, if you

love me; for while we are as faithful as turtles, we are as foolish; and fall into our own snare, instead of

laying it for the unwary. You may get into the head and heart of a rich widow; I may conjure myself into the

good graces of some old nobleman: but as for this ridiculous fidelity, it brings no grist to the mill. Excellent

Camilla, answered I, you are beforehand with me. I was going to make the very same proposal. It exactly

meets my ideas, thou paragon of morality. Yes; the better to maintain our mutual fire, let us forage for

substantial fuel. As good may always be extracted out of evil, those infidelities which are the bane of other

On the basis of this treaty we took the field. At first, there was much cry but little wool; for we had no luck at

finding cullies. Camilla met with no thing but pretty fellows, with vanity in their hearts, tinsel on their backs,

and not a maravedi in their pockets; my ladies were all of a kidney to levy, rather than to pay contributions.

As love left us in the lurch, we paid our devotions at the shrine of knavery. With the zeal of martyrs to a new

religion, did we encounter the frowns of the civil power, whose myrmidons, as like the devil in their nature as

their office, were ordered on the lookout after us; but the alguazil, with all the good qualities of which the

corregidor inherited the contraries, gave us time to make our escape out of Madrid, for the good of the trade

and a small sum of money. We took the road to Valladolid, meaning to set up in that town. I rented a house

for myself and Camilla, who passed for my sister, to avoid evil tongues. At first we kept a tight rein over our

speculative talents, and began by reconnoitring the ground before we determined on our plan of operations.

One day a man accosted me in the street, with a very civil salutation, to this effect Signor Don Raphael,

do you recollect my face? I answered in the negative. Then I have the advantage of you, replied he, for yours

is perfectly familiar to me. I have seen you at the court of Tuscany, where I was then in the grand duke's

guards. It is some months since I quitted that prince's service. I came into Spain with an Italian, who will not

discredit the politics of his country: we have been at Valladolid these three weeks. Our residence is with a

Castilian and a Galician, who are, without dispute, two of the best creatures in the world. We live together by

the sweat of our brows, and the labour of our hands, Our fare is not abstemious, nor have we made any vow

against the temptations of a life about the court If you will make one of our party, my brethren will be glad of

your company; for you always seemed to me a man of spirit, above all vulgar prejudices, in short, a monk of

Such frankness from this archscoundrel was met halfway by mine. Since you talk to me with so winning a

candour, said I, you deserve that I should be equally explicit with you. In good truth I am no novice in your

ritual; and if my modesty would allow me to be the hero of my own tale, you would be convinced that your

compliments were not lavished on an unworthy subject. But enough of my own commendations; proceed we

to the point in question. With all possible desire to become a member of your body, I shall neglect no

opportunity of proving my title to that distinction. I had no sooner told this sharper at all points, that I would

agree to swell the number of his gang, than he conducted me to their place of meeting, and introduced me in

proper form. It was on this occasion that I first saw the renowned Ambrose de Lamela. These gentlemen

catechised me in the religion of coveting my neighbour's goods, and doing as I would not be done by. They

wanted to discern whether I played the villain on principle, or had only some little practical dexterity; but I

shewed them tricks which they did not know to be on the cards, and yet acknowledged to be better than their

own. They were still deeper lost in admiration, when in cool disdain of manual artifice, as an everyday

effort of ingenuity, I maintained my prowess in such combinations of roguery as require an inventive brain

and a solid judgment to support them. In proof of these pretensions, I related the adventure of Jerome de

Moyadas; and on this single specimen of my parts, they conceived my genius of so high an order, as to elect

me by common con sent for their leader. Their choice was fully justified by a host of slippery devices, of

which I was the masterwheel, the cornerstone, or according to whatever other metaphor in mechanics you

may best express the soul of a conspiracy. When we had occasion for a female performer to heighten the

interest, Camilla was sent upon the stage, and played up to admiration in the parts she had to perform.

Just at that period, our friend and brother Ambrose was seized with a longing to see his native country once

more. He went for Galicia with an assurance that we might reckon on his return. The visit cured his patriotic

sickness. As he was on the road back, having halted at Burgos to strike some stroke of business, an innkeeper

of his acquaintance introduced him into the service of Signor Gil Blas de Santillane, not forgetting to instruct

him thoroughly in the state of that gentleman's affairs. Signor Gil Blas, pursued Don Raphael, addressing his

discourse to me, you know in what manner we eased you of your moveables in a ready furnished lodging at

Valladolid; and you must doubtless have suspected Ambrose to have been the principal contriver of that

exploit, and not without reason. On his coming into town, he ran himself out of breath to find us, and laid

open every particular of your situation, so that the associated swindlers had nothing to do but to build on his

foundation. But you are unacquainted with the consequences of that adventure; you shall therefore have them

on my authority. Your portmanteau was made free with by Ambrose and myself. We also took the liberty of

riding your mules in the direction of Madrid, not dropping the least hint to Camilla nor to our partners in

iniquity, who must have partaken in some measure of your feelings in the morning, at finding their glory

On the second day we changed our purpose. Instead of going to Madrid, whence I had not sallied forth

without an urgent motive, we passed by Zebreros, and continued our journey as far as Toledo. Our first care,

in that town, was to dress ourselves in the genteelest style; then assuming the character of two brothers from

Galicia on our travels of mere curiosity, we soon got acquainted in the most respectable circles. I was so

much in the habit of acting the man of fashion, as not easily to be detected; and as the generality of people are

blinded by a free expenditure, we threw dust into the eyes of all the world, by the elegant entertainments to

which we invited the ladies. Among the women who frequented our parties, there was one not indifferent to

me. She appeared more beautiful than Camilla, and certainly much younger. I inquired who she was; and

learned that her name was Violante, and that she was married to an ungrateful spark, who soon grew weary of

her chaste caresses, and was running after those of a prostitute, with whom he was in love. There was no need

to say any more, to determine me on enthroning Violante the sovereign lady and mistress of my thoughts and

She was not long in coming to the knowledge of her conquest. I began by following her about from place to

place, and playing a hundred monkey tricks to instil into her comprehension, that nothing would please me

better than the office of making her amends for the ill usage of her husband. The pretty creature ruminated on

my proffered kindness, and to such purpose as to let me know in the end that my labour was not wasted on an

ungrateful soil. I received a note from her in answer to several I had transmitted by one of those convenient

old dowagers, in such high request throughout Spain and Italy. The lady sent me word that her husband

supped with his mistress every evening, and did not return home till very late. It was impossible to mistake

the meaning of this. On that very night I planted myself under Violante's windows, and engaged her in a most

tender conversation. At the moment of parting, it was settled between us that every evening, at the same hour,

we should meet and converse on the same everlasting topic, without gainsaying any such other acts of

Hitherto Don Balthazar, as Violante's husband was called, had no reason to complain of his forehead; but I

was a natural philosopher, and little satisfied with metaphysical endearments. One evening, therefore, I

repaired under my lady's windows, with the design of telling her that there was an end of life and everything,

if we could not come together on more accommodating terms than from the balcony to the street; for I had

never yet been able to get into the house. Just as I got thither, a man came within sight, apparently with the

view of dogging me. In fact, it was the husband returning earlier than usual from his precious bit of

amusement; but observing a male nuisance near his nunnery, instead of coming straight home, he walked

backwards and forwards in the street. It was almost a moot point with me what I ought to do. At last, I

resolved on accosting Don Balthazar, though neither of us had the slightest knowledge of each other. Noble

gentleman, said I, you would do me a most particular favour by leaving the street vacant to me for this one

night; I would do as much for you another time. Sir, answered he, I was just going to make the same request

to you. I am on the lookout after a girl, over whom a confounded fellow of a brother keeps watch and ward

like a gaoler; and she lives not twenty yards from this place. I could wish to carry on my project without a

witness. We have the means, replied I, of attaining both our ends without clashing; for the lady of my desires

lives there, added I, pointing to his own house. We had better even help one another, in case of being

attacked. With all my heart, resumed he; I will go to my appointment, and we will make common cause if

need be. Under this pretence he went away, but only to observe me the more narrowly; and the darkness of

As for me, I made up to Violante's balcony in the simplicity of my heart. She soon heard my signal, and we

began our usual parley. I was not remiss in pressing the idol of my worship to grant me a private interview in

some safe and practicable place. She was rather coy to my entreaties, as favours hardly earned are the higher

valued: at length she took a letter out of her pocket, and flung it down to me. There, said she, you will find in

that scrap of paper the promise of what you have teased me so long about. She then withdrew, as the hour

approached when her husband usually came home. I put the note up carefully, and went towards the place

where Don Balthazar had told me that his business lay. But that staunch husband, with the sagacity of an old

sportsman where his own wife was the game, came more than halfway to meet me, with this question: Well,

good sir, are you satisfied with your happy fortunes? I have reason to be so, answered I. And as for yourself,

what have you done? has the blind god befriended you? Alas! quite the contrary, replied he; that impertinent

brother, who takes such liberties with my beauty, thought fit to come back from his country house, whence

we hugged ourselves as sure that he would not return till tomorrow. This infernal chance has put all my soft

Nothing could exceed the mutual pledges of lasting friendship which were exchanged between Don Balthazar

and me. To draw the cords the closer, we made an appointment for the next morning in the great square. This

plotting gentleman, after we had parted, betook himself to his own house, without giving Violante at all to

understand that he knew more about her than she wished him. On the following day he was punctual in the

great square, and I was not five minutes after him. We exchanged greetings with all the warmth of old

friendship; but it was a vapour to mislead on his part, though a spark of heavenly flame on mine. In the

course of conversation, this hypocritical Don Balthazar palmed upon me a fictitious confidence, respecting

his intrigue with the lady about whom he had been speaking the night before. He put together a long story he

had been manufacturing on that subject, and all this to hook me in to tell him, in return, by what means I had

got acquainted with Violante. The snare was too subtle for me to escape; I owned all with the innocence of a

newborn babe. I did not even stick at shewing the note I had received from her, and read the contents, to the

following purport: "I am going to morrow to dine with Donna Inez. You know where she lives. It is in the

house of that confidential friend that I mean to pass some happy moments along with you. It is impossible

Here indeed, said Don Balthazar, is an epistle which promises to crown all your wishes at once. I congratulate

you beforehand on your approaching happiness. He could not help fidgeting and wriggling a little, while he

talked in these terms of his own household; but all his hitches and wry faces passed off, and my eyes were as

fast sealed as ever. I was so full of anticipating titillations, as not to think of noticing my new friend, who was

obliged to get off as fast as be could, for fear of betraying his agitation in my presence. He ran to acquaint his

brotherinlaw with this strange occurrence. I know not what might pass between them: it is only certain that

Don Balthazar happened to knock at Donna Inca's door, just when I was at that lady's house with Violante.

We were warned who it was, and I escaped by a back door exactly as he went in at the front As soon as I had

got safe off, the women, whom the unexpected visit of this troublesome husband had disconcerted a little,

recovered their presence of mind, and with it so large a stock of assurance, as to stand the brunt of his attack,

and put him to a nonplus in ascertaining whether they had hid me or smuggled me out. I cannot exactly tell

you what he said to Donna Inca and his wife; nor do I believe that history will ever furnish any authentic

In the mean time, without suspecting yet how completely I was gulled by Don Balthazar, I sallied forth with

curses in my mouth, and returned to the great square, where I had appointed Lamela to meet me. But no

Lamela was there. He also had his little snug parties, and the scoundrel fared better than his comrade. As I

was waiting for him, I caught a glimpse of my treacherous associate, with a knowing smile upon his

countenance. He made up to me, and inquired, with a hearty laugh, what news of my assignation with my

nymph, under the convenient roof of Donna Inca. I cannot conceive, said I, what evil spirit, jealous of my

joys, takes delight to nip them in their blossom: but after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were,

spoke the prologue of our comedy, comes the peaking cornuto of a husband (the furies fly away with him),

and knocks at the door in the instant of our encounter. There was nothing to be done but to secure my retreat

as fast as possible. So I got out at a back door, sending to all the inhabitants of hell and its suburbs the jealous

knave, who was so uncivil as to search another lady's house for his own horns. I am sorry you sped so

illfavouredly, exclaimed Don Balthazar, who was chuckling with in ward satisfaction at my disappointment.

What a mechanical rogue of a husband! I would advise you to shew no mercy to the wittol. Oh! you need not

teach me how to predominate over such a peasant, replied I. Take my word for it, a new quarter shall be

added to his coat of arms this very night. His wife, when I went away, told me not to be fainthearted for

such a trifle; but to place myself without fail under her windows at an earlier hour than usual, for she was

resolved to let me into the house; and as a precaution against all accidents, she begged me to bring two or

three friends in my train, for fear of a surprise. What a discreet and inventive lady! said he. I should have no

objection to being of your party. Ah! my dear friend, exclaimed I, out of wits with joy, and throwing my arms

about Don Balthazar's neck, how infinitely you will oblige me! I will do more, resumed he; I know a young

man, armed like another Caesar, for either field of love or war; he shall be of our number, and you may then

I knew not in what words to thank this seeming friend, so that my gratitude might be equivalent to his zeal.

To make short of the matter, I accepted his proffered aid. Our meeting was fixed under Violante's balcony

early in the evening, and we parted. He went in quest of his brotherinlaw, who was the hero in question.

As for me, I walked about all day with Lamela, who had no more misgivings than myself, though somewhat

astonished at the warmth with which Don Balthazar engaged in my interests. We slipt our own necks

completely into the noose. I own this was mere infatuation on our parts, whose natural instinct ought to have

warned us of a halter. When I thought it proper time to present myself under Violante's windows, Ambrose

and I took care to be armed with small swords. There we found the husband of my fair dame and another

man, waiting for us with a very determined air. Don Balthazar accosted me, and introducing his

brotherinlaw, said: Sir, this is the brave officer whose prowess I have extolled so highly to you. Make the

best of your way into your mistress's house, and let no fear of the consequences be any bar to the enjoyment

After a mutual interchange of compliments, I knocked at Violante's door. It was opened by a kind of duenna.

In I went, and without looking back after what was passing behind me, made the best of my way to the lady's

room. While I was paying her my preliminary civilities, the two cutthroats, who had followed me into the

house, and had banged the door after them so violently that Ambrose was left in the street, made their

appearance. You may well suppose that then was the appeal to arms. They both fell upon me at the same

time, but I shewed them some play. I kept them engaged on either side so fiercely, that they were sorry

perhaps not to have taken a safer road to their revenge. The husband was run through the body. His

brotherinlaw, seeing him on his travels to the shades below, made the best of his way to the door, which

the duenna and Violante had opened, to make their escape while we were fighting. I ran after him into the

street, where I met with Lamela once more, who by dint of not being able to get a word out of the women,

running as they did for their very lives, did not know exactly what he was to divine from the infernal noise he

had just heard. We got back to our inn. After packing up what was best worth taking with us, we mounted our

It was sufficiently clear that this business was not likely to be without its consequences, and that a hue and

cry would be set up in Toledo, which we should act like wise men to anticipate by a retreat. We stayed the

night at Vilarubia. At the inn where we put up, some time after our arrival, there alighted a tradesman of

Toledo on his way to Segorba. We clubbed our suppers. He related to us the tragical catastrophe of Violante's

husband; and so far was he from suspecting us of being parties concerned, that we inquired into particulars

with the curious indifference of common newsmongers. Gentlemen, said he, just as I was setting out this

morning, the report of this melancholy event was handed about. Every one was on the hunt after Violante;

and they say that the corregidor, a relation of Don Balthazar, is determined on sparing no pains to discover

The corregidor of Toledo and his police gave me very little uneasiness. But for fear of the worst, I determined

to precipitate my retreat from New Castile. It occurred to me that Violante, when hunted out of her

hidingplace, would turn informer, and in that case she might give such a description of my person to the

clerks in office as might enable them to put their scouts upon a right scent. For this reason, on the following

day we struck out of the high road, as a measure of safety. Fortunately Lamela was acquainted with

threefourths of Spain, and knew by what cross paths we could get securely into Arragon. Instead of going

straight to Cuen�a, we threaded the defiles of the mountains overhanging that town, and arrived, by ways

with which my guide was well acquainted, at a grotto looking very much like a hermitage. In fact, it was the

While I was reconnoitring the neighbourhood, which presented a most delicious landscape to my view, my

companion said to me, It is six years since I travelled this way. At that time the grotto before us afforded a

retreat to an old hermit who entertained me charitably. He made me fare as he did. I remember that he was a

holy man, and talked in such a strain as almost to wean me from the vices and follies of this nether world. He

may possibly be still living; I will ascertain whether it be so or not. With these words in his mouth, Ambrose,

under the influence of natural curiosity, alighted from his mule, and went into the hermitage. He remained

there some minutes, and then returned, calling after me, and saying, Come hither, Don Raphael, come and

bear witness to a most affecting event. I dismounted immediately. We tied our mules to a tree, and I followed

Lamela into the grotto, where I descried an old anchoret stretched at his length upon a couch, pale and at the

point of death. A white beard, very thick, hung down to his middle, and he held a large rosary, most piously

ornamented, in his clasped hands. At the noise which we made in coming near him, he opened his eyes, upon

which death had already begun to lay his leaden hand; and after having looked at us for a moment, said,

"Whosoever you are, my brethren, profit by the spectacle which presents itself to your observation. I have

seen out forty years in the world, and sixty in this solitude. But mark! At this eternal crisis, the time I have

devoted to my pleasures seems an age, and that on the contrary which has been sacred to repentance, but a

minute! Alas! I fear lest the austerities of brother Juan should be found light in the balance with the sins of

No sooner were these words out of his mouth than he breathed his last. We were struck by the solemn scene.

Objects of this kind always make some impression even on the greatest libertines; but our serious thoughts

were of no long duration. We soon forgot what he had been saying to us, and begun making an inventory of

what the hermitage contained; an employment which was not oppressively laborious, since the household

furniture extended no further than what you remarked in the grotto. Brother Juan was not only in

illfurnished lodgings; his kitchen, too, was in a very rustic plight All the store laid in consisted of some

small nuts and some pieces of crusty barley bread as hard as flint, which had all the appearance of having

been impregnable to the gums of the venerable man. I specify his gums, because we looked for his teeth, and

found they had all dropped out. The whole arrangement of this solitary abode, every object that met our eyes,

made us look upon this good anchoret as a pattern of sanctity. One thing only staggered us in our opinion. We

opened a paper folded in the form of a letter, and lying upon the table, wherein he besought the person who

should read the contents, to carry his rosary and sandals to the bishop of Cuen�a. We could not make out in

what spirit this modern recluse of the desert could aim at making such a present to his bishop. It seemed to us

to tread somewhat on the heels of his humility, and to savour of one who was a candidate for a niche in the

calendar. Though indeed it might be, that there was nothing in it but a simple supposition, that the bishop was

such another as himself; but whether his ignorance was really so extreme, I shall not pretend to decide.

In talking over this subject, a very pleasant idea occurred to Lamela. Let us take up our abode, said he, in this

holy retreat. The disguise of hermits will become us. Brother Juan must be laid quietly in the earth. You shall

personate him; and for myself, in the character of brother Anthony, I will go and see what is to be done in the

neighbouring towns and villages. Besides that we shall be too cunningly ensconced for the prying curiosity of

the corregidor, since it is not to be supposed that he will think of coming hither to look for us, I have some

good connections at Cuen�a, which may be of essential service to us. I fell in with this odd whim, not so

much for the reasons given me by Ambrose, as in compliance with the humour of the thing, and as it were to

play a part in a dramatic piece. We made an excavation in the ground at about thirty or forty yards from the

grotto, and buried the old anchoret there without any pompous rites, after having stripped him of his

wardrobe, which consisted of a single gown tied round the middle with a leathern girdle. We likewise

despoiled him of his beard to make me an artificial one: and finally, after his interment, we took possession of

The first day our table was but meanly served; the provisions of the deceased were all we had to feed on; but

on the following morning, before sunrise, Lamela set off to sell the two mules at Toralva, and returned in the

evening, laden with provisions and other articles which he had purchased. He brought everything necessary to

metamorphose us completely. For himself he had provided a gown of coarse dark cloth, and a little red

horsehair beard, so ingeniously appended to his ears, that one would have sworn it had been natural. There

is not a cleverer fellow in the universe for a frolic. Brother Juan's beard was also new modelled, and adapted

to the plumpness of my face. My brown woollen cap completed the masquerade. In fact, nothing was wanting

to make us pass for what we were not. Our equipage was so ludicrously out of character, that we could not

look at one another without laughing, under a garb so diametrically at variance with our general complexion.

With brother Juan's mantle, I caught and kept his rosary and sandals; taking the liberty of borrowing them for

We had already been three days in the hermitage, without having been interrupted by a living soul; but on the

fourth, two countrymen came into the grotto. They brought bread, cheese, and onions, for the deceased,

whom they supposed to be still living. I threw myself on our miserable couch as soon as they made their

appearance; and it was not difficult to impose on them. Besides that it was too dark to distinguish my features

accurately, I imitated the voice of brother Juan, whose last words I had heard, to the best of my ability. They

had no suspicion of the trick, though a good deal surprised at finding another hermit there. Lamela, taking

advantage of their stupid wonder, said in a canting tone: My brethren, be not astonished at seeing me in this

solitude. I have quitted a hermitage of my own in Arragon, to come hither and be a companion to the

venerable and edifying brother Juan, who, at his advanced age, wants a yokefellow to administer to his

necessities. The rustics lavished their clumsy panegyrics on the charity of Ambrose, and congratulated

themselves that they might triumph over their neighbours, and boast of two holy personages residing in their

Lamela, laden with a large wallet which he had not forgotten among the number of his purchases, went for

the first time to reconnoitre the town of Cuen�a, which is but a very short distance from the hermitage. With a

mortified exterior, by which nature had dubbed him for a cheat, and the art of making that natural deception

go as far as possible, by a most hypocritical and factitious array of features, he could not fail to play upon the

feelings of the charitable and humane, and those whom heaven has blessed with affluence. His knapsack bore

testimony to the extravagance of their pious liberalities. Master Ambrose, said. I on his return, I congratulate

you on your happy knack at softening the souls of all good Christians. As we hope to be saved! one would

suppose that you had been a mendicant friar among the Capuchins. I have done something else besides

bringing in food for the convent, answered he. You must know that I have ferreted out a certain lass called

Barbara, with whom I used to flirt formerly. She is as much altered as any of us: for she also has addicted

herself to a godly life. She forms a coterie with two or three other sanctified dames, who are an example to

the faithful in public, and flounce over head and ears in every sort of private vice. She did not know me again

at first. What then, mistress Barbara, said I, is it possible that you should have discharged one of your oldest

friends from your remembrance, your servant Ambrose? As I am a true Christian, Signor de Lamela,

exclaimed she, I never thought to have turned you up in such a garb as that. By what transformation are you

become a hermit? This is more than I can tell you just now, rejoined I. The particulars are rather long; but I

will come to morrow evening and satisfy your curiosity. Nay, more; I will bring brother Juan, my companion,

along with me. Brother Juan, interrupted she, the venerable hermit who has taken up his saintly residence

near this town? You do not know what you are saying; he is supposed to be more than a hundred years old. It

is very true, said I, that he was of that age some little while ago; but time; in deference to his sanctity, has

gone backward with him; and he is grown considerably younger within these few days. He is at present just

about my turn of life. Say you so! Then let us have him too, replied Barbara. I perceive there is something

We did not miss our appointment with these whited sepulchres on the following night To make our reception

the more agreeable, they had laid out a sumptuous entertainment. Off went our beards and cowls, and

vestments of mortification; and without any squeamishness we confessed our birth, education, and real

character, to these sisters in hypocrisy. On their part, for fear of being behindhand with us in freedom from

prejudice, they fairly let us see of what pretended religionists are capable, when they drop the veil of the

sanctuary, and exhibit their unmanufactured faces. We spent almost the whole night at table, and got back to

our grotto but a moment before daybreak. We were not long in repeating our visit; or, if the truth must be

told, it was nightly for three months; till we had ate up more than twothirds of our ways and means in the

company of these delicate creatures. But an unsuccessful candidate for their favour got wind of our

proceedings, and prated of our whereabout in the ear of justice, which was to have been in motion towards

the hermitage this very day, to lay hold of our persons. Yesterday Ambrose, while picking up eleemosynary

at Cuen�a, stumbled upon one of our whining sisterhood, who gave him a note, with this caution: A female

friend of mine has written me this letter, which I was going to send to you by a man on purpose. Shew it to

brother Juan, and regulate your proceedings accordingly. It was this very note, gentlemen, that Lamela gave

me in your presence, which occasioned us to take so abrupt a leave of our solitary dwelling.

WHEN Don Raphael had finished the narrative of his adventurous life, which, with all the other qualities of a

romance, had the tediousness, Don Alphonso, according to the laws of good breeding, swore himself black in

the face that he had been prodigiously entertained. After the usual exchange of compliments, Signor Ambrose

put in his oar, with an admonitory hint to the partner of his exploits and peregrinations. Consider, Don

Raphael, that the sun is setting. It would not be amiss, methinks, to take counsel on what we are to do. You

are in the right, answered his comrade, we must determine on the place of our destination. For my own part,

replied Lamela, I am of opinion that we should get upon the road again without loss of time, reach Requena

tonight, and enter upon the territory of Valencia tomorrow, where we will go to work full tilt at our old

trade. I have some prognosticating twitches, which tell me that we shall strike some good strokes in that

quarter. His colleague, from ample experience of his infallibility in such prophecies, voted on his side of the

CH. II Don Raphael's consultation with his company, and their adventures as they were preparing to leave the wood. 184

question. As for Don Alphonso and myself, having nothing to do but to follow the lead of these two worthy

gentlemen, we waited, in silent acquiescence, the issue of this momentous debate.

Thus it was determined that we should take the direction of Requena; and all hands were piped to make the

necessary arrangements. We made our meal after the same fashion as in the morning, and the horse was laden

with the bottle, and with the remnant of our provisions. After a time, the approach of night seemed to promise

us that darkness so friendly, and even so necessary, to the safety of our retreat; and we were beginning our

march through the wood: but before we had gone a hundred paces, a light among the trees gave us a subject

of anxious speculation. What can be the meaning of that? said Don Raphael; these surely must be

bloodhounds of the police from Cuen�a, uncoupled and eager for the sport, with a fresh scent of us in this

forest, and in full cry after their game. I am of a very different opinion, said Ambrose; they are more likely to

be benighted travellers taking shelter in the thicket till daybreak. But there is no trusting to conjecture: I will

examine into the real truth. Stay you here all three of you; I will be back again instantly. No sooner said than

done; he stole, just as if he had been used to it, towards the light, which was not far off; no brute or human

thief of forest or city could have done it better. With a gentle removal of the leaves and branches which

obstructed his passage, the whole scene was laid open to his silent contemplation; and it afforded sufficient

food. On the grass, round about a lighted candle with a clod for its candlestick, were seated four men, just

finishing a meat pie, and hugging a pretty large bottle, which was at its last gasp, after having sustained their

alternate embraces for successive rounds. At some paces from these gentry, he espied a lady and gentleman

tied to the trees, and a little further off, a carriage with two mules richly caparisoned. He determined at once

in his own mind that the fellows carousing on the ground were banditti; and the tenor of their talk assured

him that he had not belied their trade by his conjecture. The four cutthroats all avowed a like desire of

possessing the female who had fallen into their hands; and they were proposing to draw lots for her. Lamela,

having made himself master of the business, came back to us, and gave an exact account of all he had seen

My friends, said Don Alphonso on his recital, that lady and gentleman whom the robbers have tied to trees,

are probably persons of the first condition. Shall we suffer scoundrels like these to triumph over their honour

and take away their lives? Put yourselves under my direction: let us assail the desperate outlaws, and they

will perish under our attack. With all my heart, said Don Raphael. It is all one to me, I had just as soon

engage on the right side as on the wrong. Ambrose, for his part, protested that he wished for nothing better

than to lend a hand in so moral an enterprise, as it promised to combine much profit with some share of

honour. And indeed, if a man may speak a good word for himself, danger stood better recommended than

usual to my comprehension; all the boiling courage of knighthood, pledged up to the knuckles of the chin on

the behalf of female innocence, was oozing out at every pore of this chivalrous person. But, if we are to state

facts in the spirit of history rather than of romance, the danger was more in imagination than in reality.

Lamela having brought us word that the arms of the robbers were all piled up at the distance of ten or twelve

paces out of their reach, there was no difficulty in securing the mastery of the field. We tied our horses to a

tree, and drew near, as softly as possible, to the spot where the robbers were seated. They were debating with

some impetuosity, and their vociferous argument was all in favour of our covert attack. We got possession of

their arms before they had any suspicion of us. But the enemy was nearer than they imagined: too near to

During the conflict the candle went out, so that we proceeded in our business by guesswork. We were not

remiss, however, in unbinding the prisoners, of whom fear had got such complete possession, that they had

not their wits enough about them to thank us for what we had done for them. It must be allowed that they

could not at first distinguish whether they were to consider us as their deliverers, or as a fresh gang who had

taken them out of one furnace to cast them hissing into another. But we recovered their spirits by the

assurance, that we should lodge them safely in a publichouse which Ambrose mentioned as not being more

than half a mile off, whence they might take all necessary measures to pursue their journey in whatever

direction they thought proper. After these words of comfort, which seemed to sink deep, we placed them in

CH. II Don Raphael's consultation with his company, and their adventures as they were preparing to leave the wood. 185

their carriage, and conducted them out of the wood, holding their mules by the bridle. Our clerical friends

instituted a ghostly visitation to the pockets of the vanquished banditti. Our next step was to recover Don

Alphonso's horse. We also took to ourselves the steeds of the robbers, waiting as they were to be released

from the trees to which they were tied near the field of battle. With this extensive cavalcade we followed

brother Anthony, mounted on one of the mules, and conducting the carriage to the inn, whither we did not

arrive in less than two hours, though he had pledged his credit that the distance from the wood was very

We knocked roughly at the door. Every living creature was napping, except the fleas. The landlord and

landlady got on their clothes in a hurry, and were not at all annoyed at finding their rest disturbed by the

arrival of an equipage, which promised to do more for the good of the house than it eventually did. The whole

inn was lighted up in an instant. Don Alphonso and the stagebred son of Lucinda lent their assistance to the

gentleman and lady in alighting from the carriage, and acted as their ushers in leading the way to the room

prepared for them by the landlord. Compliments flew backwards and forwards like shuttlecocks; but we were

not a little astonished at discovering the Count de Polan himself and his daughter Seraphina, in the persons

we had just rescued. It would be difficult to represent by words the surprise of that lady, as well as of Don

Alphonso, when they recognized each other's features. The count took no notice of it, his attention being

engrossed by other matters. He set about relating to us in what manner the robbers had attacked him, and how

they secured his daughter and himself, after having killed his postilion, a page, and a valetdechambre. He

ended with declaring how deeply he felt his obligation; and that if we would call upon him at Toledo, where

he should be in a month, we should judge for ourselves whether he felt as a grateful heart ought to feel.

His lordship's daughter was not backward in her acknowledgments for her timely rescue; and as we were of

opinion, that is, Raphael and myself, that we should do a good turn to Don Alphonso by giving him an

opportunity of a minute's private parley with the young widow, we contrived to keep the Count de Polan in

play. Lovely Seraphina, said Don Alphonso to the lady in a low voice, I no longer lament over the lot which

obliges me to live like a man banished from civil society, since I have been so fortunate as to assist in the

important service just rendered you. What then! answered she, with a sigh, is it you who have saved my life

and honour? Is it to you that we are so indebted, myself equally with my father? Ah! Don Alphonso, why

were you the instrument of my brother's death? She said no more upon the subject; but he conceived clearly

by these words, and by the tone in which they were pronounced, that if he was over head and ears in love

THE Count de Polan, after having exhausted half the night in thanking us, and protesting that we might

reckon upon his substantial acknowledgments, sent for the landlord to consult him on the best method of

getting safely to Turis, whither it was his intention to go. We had nothing to do with this nobleman's further

progress, and therefore left him to take his own measures. Our departure from the inn was now resolved on;

After two hours' travelling, the day overtook us near Campillo. We made as expeditiously as possible for the

mountains between that hamlet and Requena. There we wore out the day in taking our rest and reckoning up

our stock, which the spoil of the robbers had considerably replenished, to the amount of more than three

hundred pistoles, the lawful ravage of their pockets. We began our march again with the settingin of the

night; and on the following morning reached the frontier of Valencia in safety. We got quietly into the first

wood that offered as a shelter. The inmost recesses of it were best suited to our purpose, and led us on by

winding paths to a spot where a rivulet of transparent water was meandering in its slow and silent course, to

incorporate with the waters of Guadalaviar. The refreshing shade afforded by the foliage, and the rich

pasturage in which our toilwon beasts so much delighted, would have fixed this for the place of our halting,

We therefore alighted, and were preparing to pass the day very pleasantly, but a good breakfast was amongst

the foremost of our intended pleasures; and we found that there was very little ammunition left. Bread was

beginning to be a nonentity; and our bottle was becoming an evidence of the material system, mere carnal

leather without a vivifying soul. Gentlemen, said Ambrose, scenery and the picturesque have but hungry

charms for me, unless Bacchus and Ceres preside over the landscape. Our provisions must be lengthened out.

For this purpose, away post I to Xelva. It is a very pretty town, not more than two leagues off. I shall soon

make this little excursion. Speaking after this manner, he slung the bottle and the wallet over a horse's back,

leaped merrily into his seat, and shot out of the wood with a rapidity which seemed to bid fair for a speedy

He did not, however, come back quite so soon as he had given us reason to expect. More than half the day

had elapsed; nay, night herself was already pranking up her dun and gloomy wings, to overshadow the thicket

with a denser horror, when we saw our purveyor once again, whose long stay was beginning to give us some

uneasiness. Our extreme wishes were lame and impotent, compared with the abundance of his stores. He not

only produced the bottle filled with some excellent wine, and the wallet stuffed with game and poultry ready

dressed, to say nothing of bread; the horse was laden besides with a large bundle of stuffs, of which we could

make neither head nor tail. He took notice of our wonder, and said with a smile: I will lay a wager, neither

Don Raphael nor all the colleges of soothsayers upon earth can guess why I have bought these articles. With

this fling at our dulness, we untied the bundle, and lectured on the intrinsic value of what we had been

considering only as an empty pageant. In the inventory was a cloak and a black gown of trailing dimensions;

doublets, breeches, and hose to correspond; an inkstand and writing paper, such as a secretary of state need

not be ashamed of; a key, such as a treasurer might carry; a great seal and green wax, such as a chancellor

might affix to his decrees. When he had at length exhausted the display of his bargains, Don Raphael

observed in a bantering tone Faith and troth, Master Ambrose, it must be confessed that you have made a

good sensible speculation. But pray, how do you mean to turn the penny on your purchase? Let me alone for

that, answered Lamela. All these things cost me only ten pistoles, and it shall go hard but they bring us in

above five hundred. The tens in five hundred are fifty; a good improvement of money, my masters! I am not a

man to burden myself with a trumpery pedlar's pack; and to prove to you that I have not been making ducks

and drakes of our joint stock, I will let you into the secret of a plan which has just taken birth in my

After having laid in my stock of bread, I went into a cook's shop, where I ordered a range of partridges,

chickens, and young rabbits, halfadozen of each, to be put instantly on the spit. While these relishing little

articles were roasting, in came a man in a violent passion, openmouthed against the coarse conduct of a

tradesman to his consequential self. This faggot of fury observed to the lord paramount of the drippingpan:

By St James! Samuel Simon is the most wrongheaded retail dealer in the town of Xelva. He has just insulted

me in his own shop before his customers. The skinflint would not trust me for six ells of cloth, though he

knows very well that my credit is as good as the bank, and that no one could say he ever lost anything by me.

Are not you delighted with the outlandish monster? He has no objection to getting people of fashion on his

books. He had rather toss up heads or tails with them, than oblige a plain citizen in an honest way, and be

paid in full at the time appointed. What a strange whim! But he is an infernal Jew. He will be taken in some

day or other! All the merchants on the Exchange are lying in wait to catch him upon the hip; and his disgrace

While this reptile of the warehouse was thus spitting his spite and blurting out many other illnatured

innuendoes, there came over me a sort of astrological anticipation that I should be lord of the ascendant over

this Samuel Simon. My friend, said I to the man who was complaining against that hawker of damaged

goods, of what character is the strange fellow you are talking about? Of a confoundedly bad character,

answered he in a pet, Depend on it, he is one of the most extortionate usurers in existence, though with the

affectation of not letting his left hand know what his right gives away in charity. He was a Jew, and has

turned Catholic; but rip your way into his heart if he has any, and you will find him still as inveterate a Jew as

I took in with greedy ear the whole invective of the shopkeeping declaimant, and failed not, on coming out

of the eatinghouse, to inquire for Samuel Simon's residence. A person directed me to the part of the town,

and there was no difficulty in finding out the house. It was not enough to skim my eye cursorily over his

shop. I peered into every hole and corner of it; and my imagination, always on the alert when any profit is to

be picked up, has already engendered a rogue's trick, which only waits the period of gestation, when it may

turn out a bantling not unworthy to be fathered by the sanctimonious servant of Signor Gil Blas. Straightway

went I to the readymade warehouse, where I bought these dresses, into which we may stuff an inquisitor, a

notary, and an alguazil, and play the parts in the spirit of the solemn offices they represent.

Ah! my dear Ambrose, interrupted Don Raphael, transported with rapture at the suggestion, what a wonderful

idea! a glorious scheme indeed! I am quite jealous of the contrivance. Willingly would I blot out the proudest

quarter from my escutcheon, to have owned an effort of genius so transcendent. Yes, Lamela, I see, my

friend, all the rich invention of the design, and you need be at no loss for instruments to carry it into effect.

You want two good actors to play up to you; and you have not far to look for them. You have yourself a face

that can look sanctified, magisterial, or bloodthirsty at will, and may do very well to represent the

inquisition. My character shall be that of the notary; and Signor Gil Blas, if he pleases, may enact the

alguazil. Thus are the persons of the drama distributed: to morrow we will play the piece, and I will pledge

myself for its success, bating one of those unlucky chance medleys, which turn awry the currents of the most

As yet Don Raphael's masterpiece of roguery had made but a clumsy impression on my plodding brain; but

the argument of the fable was developed at suppertime, and the hinge upon which it turned was, to my

mind, of an ingenious contrivance. After having despatched part of our game, and bled our bottle to the last

stage of evacuation, we stretched our length upon the grass, and soon fell fast asleep. Up with you! up with

you! was the alarum of Signor Ambrose, as the day begun to dawn. People who have a great enterprise on

hand ought not to indulge themselves in indolence. A plague upon you, master inquisitor, said Don Raphael,

rubbing his eyes, you are confounded early on the move! It is as good as an order for execution to master

Samuel Simon. Many a true word is spoken in jest, replied Lamela. Nay, you shall know more, added he with

a sarcastic grin. I dreamt last night that I was plucking the hairs out of his beard. Was not that a lefthanded

dream for him, master secretary? These pleasant hits were followed by a thousand others, which called forth

new bursts of merriment. Our breakfast passed off with the utmost gaiety; and when it was over, we made our

arrangements for the pageant we had got up. Ambrose arrayed himself in sables, as befitted so ghostly an

instrument for the suppression of vice. We also took to our official habits; nor has the dignity of magistracy

been often more gravely represented than by Don Raphael and myself. The making up of our persons was

rather a tedious operation; for it was later than two o' clock in the afternoon when we sallied from the wood

to attend our call at Xelva. It is true, there was no hurry, since the play was not to begin till the settingin of

the evening. That being the case, we jogged on leisurely, and stopped at the gates of the town till the day was

At that eventful hour, we left our horses where they were, to the care of Don Alphonso, who was very well

satisfied to have so humble a cast in the distribution. As for Don Raphael, Ambrose, and myself, our first

visit was not to Samuel Simon in person, but to a tavernkeeper who lived very near him. His reverence the

inquisitor walked foremost. In went he to the bar; and said gravely to the landlord: Master, I want to speak a

word with you in private. The obsequious publican shewed us into a room, where Lamela, now that we had

got him to ourselves, said: I have the honour to be an unworthy member of the holy office, and am come here

on a business of very great importance. At this intimation, the man of liquor turned pale, and answered in a

tremulous tone that he was not conscious of having given any umbrage to the holy inquisition. True, replied

Ambrose with encouraging affability; neither do we meditate any harm against you. Heaven forbid, that

august tribunal, too hasty in its punishments, should make no distinction between guilt and innocence. It is

unrelenting, but always just: to become obnoxious to its vengeance, you must have earned its displeasure by

wickedness or contumacy. Be satisfied therefore that it is not you who bring me to Xelva, but a certain dealer

and chapman, by name Samuel Simon. A very ugly story about him has come round to us. He is still a Jew in

his heart, they say; and has only embraced Christianity from sordid and secular motives. I command you, in

the name of the tremendous court I represent, to tell me all you know about that man. Beware how you are

induced by good neighbourhood, or possibly by close friendship, to gloss over and palliate his errors; for, I

warn you authoritatively, if I detect the slightest prevarication in your evidence, you are yourself even as one

of the abandoned and accursed. Where is my secretary? pursued he, turning down towards Don Raphael. Sit

Mr Secretary, with his paper already in his hand and his pen behind his ear, took his seat most pompously,

and made ready to take down the landlord's deposition; who promised solemnly on his part not to suppress

one tittle of the real fact. So far, so good! said the worshipful commissioner; we have only to proceed in our

examination. You will only just answer my questions; but do not interlard your replies with any comments of

your own. Do you often see Samuel Simon at church? I never thought of looking for him, said the drawer of

corks; but I do not know that I ever saw him there in my life. Very good! cried the inquisitor. Write down that

the defendant never goes to church. I do not say so, your worship, answered the landlord, I only say that I

never happened to see him there. We may have been at church together and yet not have come across each

other. My good friend, replied Lamela, you forget that you are deposing to facts, and not arguing. Remember

what I told you; contempt of court is a heinous offence. You are to give a sound and discreet evidence; every

iota of what makes against him, and not a word in his favour, if you knew volumes. If that is your practice, O

upright and impartial judge, resumed our host, my testimony will scarcely be worth the trouble of taking. I

know nothing about the tradesman you are inquiring after; and therefore can tell neither good nor harm of

him: but if you wish to examine into the history of his private life, I will run and call Gaspard, his apprentice,

whom you may question as much as you please. The lad comes and takes his glass here sometimes with his

friends. Bless us, what a tongue! He will rip up all the minutest actions of his master's life, and find

I like your open dealing, said Ambrose with a nod of approbation. To point out a man so capable of speaking

to the bad morals of Simon, is an instance of Christian charity as well as of religious zeal. I shall report you

very favourably to the inquisition. Make haste, therefore; go and fetch this Gaspard, of whom you speak; but

do the thing cautiously, so that his master may have no suspicion of what is going forward. The multiplier of

scores acquitted himself of his commission with due diligence and laudable privacy. Our little shopman came

along with him. The youth had a tongue with a tang, and was just the sort of fellow that we wanted.

Welcome, my good young man! said Lamela, You behold in me an inquisitor, appointed by that venerable

body to collect informations against Samuel Simon, on an accusation of still adhering to Judaism in his secret

devotions. You are an inmate of his family, consequently you must be an eyewitness to many of his most

private transactions. It probably may be unnecessary to warn you, that you are obliged in conscience, and by

fear of punishment, to declare all you know about him, notwithstanding any promise to the contrary, when I

order you so to do on the part of the holy inquisition. May it please your reverence, answered the plodding

little rascal, I am quite ready to satisfy your heart's desire on that head, without being commanded thereto in

the name of the holy office. If ever my acquittal was to depend on my master's character of me, I am

persuaded that my chance would be a sorry one; and for that reason, I shall serve him as he would serve me.

And I may tell you in the first place, that he is a flybynight whose proceedings it is no easy matter to take

measure of; a man who puts on all the starch formalities of an inveterate religionist, but at bottom has not a

spark of principle in his composition. He goes every evening dangling after a little girl no better than she

should be. . . . I am vastly glad indeed to find that, interrupted Ambrose, because I plainly perceive, by all

you have been telling me, that he is a man of corrupt morals and licentious practices. But answer point by

point to the questions I shall put to you. It is above all on the subject of religion that I am commissioned to

inquire into his sentiments and conduct. Pray tell me, do you eat much pork at your house? I do not think,

answered Gaspard, that we have seen it at table twice in the year that I have lived with him. Better and better!

replied the paragon of inquisitors write down in legible characters that they never eat pork in Samuel Simon's

family. But as a setoff against that, doubtless a joint of lamb is served up every now and then? Yes, every

now and then, rejoined the apprentice; we killed one for our own consumption about last Easter. The season

is pat and to the purpose, cried the ecclesiastical commissioner. Come, write down, that Simon keeps the

passover: This goes on merrily to a complete conviction; and it seems, we have got a good serviceable

Tell me again, my friend, pursued Lamela, whether you have not often seen your master fondle young

children. A thousand times, answered Gaspard. When he sees the little urchins playing about before the shop,

if they happen to be pretty, he calls them in and makes much of them. Write that down, be sure you write that

down! interrupted the inquisitor. Samuel Simon is very grievously suspected of lying in wait for Christian

children, and enticing them into his den to circumcise them. Vastly well! vastly well, indeed, Master Simon!

you will have an account to settle with the society for the suppression of Judaism, take my word for it. Do not

take it into your savage head that such bloody sacrifices are to be perpetrated with impunity. A pretty use you

make of baptism and shaving! Cheer up, religious Gaspard, thou foremost of elect apprentices! Make a full

confession of all thy master's sins; complete thine honest testimony by telling us how this simular of a

Catholic is more than ever wedded to his Jewish customs and ceremonies. Is it not a fact, that one day in the

week he sits with his hands before him, and will not even perform the most necessary offices for himself? No,

answered Gaspard, I have not exactly observed that. What comes nearest to it is that on some days he shuts

himself up in his closet, and stays there a long time. Ay! now we have it, exclaimed the commissary. He

keeps the sabbath, or I am not an inquisitor. Note that particularly, officer; note that he observes the fast of

the sabbath most superstitiously! Out upon him! What a shocking fellow! One question more, and his

business is done. Is not he always parleying about Jerusalem? Pretty often indeed, replied our informer. He

knows the Old Testament by heart, and tells us how the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed. The very thing!

resumed Ambrose. Secretary! be sure you do not neglect that feature of the case. Write, in letters of an inch

long, that Samuel Simon has contracted with the devil for the rebuilding of the temple, and that he is plotting

day and night for the reestablishment of his nation. That is all I want to know; and it is labour in vain to

pursue the examination any further. What Gaspard, in the spirit of truth and charity, has deposed, would be

When the august mouthpiece of the holy tribunal had sifted the little scoundrelly apprentice after this

manner, he told him he might go about his business; at the same time commanding him, under the severest

penalties of the inquisition, not to say a word to his master about what was going forward. Gaspard promised

implicit obedience, and marched off. We were not long in coming after him: our procession from the inn was

as grave and solemn as our pilgrimage thereunto, till we knocked at Samuel Simon's door. He opened it in

person. Three figures such as ours might have dumbfounded a better man; but his face was as long as a

lawsuit, when Lamela, our spokesman, said to him in a tone of authority: Master Samuel, I command you in

the name of the holy inquisition, whose delegate I have the honour to be, to give me the key of your closet

without murmur or delay. I want to see if I cannot find wherewithal to corroborate certain hints which have

The son of commerce, aghast at these sounds of melancholy import, reeled two steps backward, just as if

some one had given him a blow in the breadbasket. Far from smelling a rat in this pleasant trick of ours, he

fancied in good earnest that some secret enemy had made him an object of suspicion to the holy

hueandcry; and it might possibly have happened that, from being rather clumsy at his new duties as a

Christian, he might be conscious of having laid himself open to serious animadversion. However that might

be, I never saw a man look more foolish. He did as he was ordered without saying nay; and opened all his

lockup places with the sheepish acquiescence of a man, who stood in awe of an ecclesiastical rap on the

knuckles. At least, said Ambrose as he went in, at least you are not a contumacious oppugner of our resistless

mandates. But withdraw into another room, and leave me to fulfil the duties of my station without profane

observers. Samuel did not set his face against this command any more than against the first: but kept himself

quiet in his shop, while we went all three of us into his closet, where, without loss of time, we laid an

embargo on his cash. It was no difficult matter to find it; for it lay in an open coffer, and in much larger

quantity than we could carry away. There were a great many bags heaped up; but all in silver. Gold would

have been more to our mind; but, as robbers must not be choosers any more than beggars, we were obliged to

yield to the necessity of the case. Not only did we line our pockets with ducats; but the most unsearchable

parts of our dress were made the receptacles of our filchings. Yet was there no outward shew of the heavy

burden under which we tottered; thanks to the cunning contrivance of Ambrose and Don Raphael, who

We marched out of the closet, after having feathered our nests pretty warmly; and then, for a reason which

the reader will have no great difficulty in guessing, the worshipful inquisitor produced his padlock, and fixed

it on the door with his own hands: he affixed moreover his own seal, and then said to Simon: Master Samuel,

I forbid you, in the name of the holy inquisition, to touch either this padlock or this seal, which it is your

bounden duty to hold sacred, since it is the authentic seal of our holy office. I shall return hither this time

tomorrow, then and here to open my commission, and provisionally to take off the interdict. With this

injunction, he ordered the street door to he opened, and we made our escape after the processional manner,

out of our wits with joy. As soon as we had marched about fifty yards, we began to mend our pace into such a

quick step, aggravated by degrees into a leap and a bound, that we were almost like vaulters and tumblers, in

spite of the weight we carried. We were soon out of town; and mounting our horses once more, pushed

forward towards Segorba, with many a pious ejaculation to the God Mercury, on the happy issue of so bold

We travelled all night, according to our modest and unobtrusive custom; so that we found ourselves at sunrise

near a little village two leagues from Segorba. As we were all tired to death, it was agreed unanimously to

strike out of the highway, and rest under the shade of some willows, which we saw at the foot of a little hill,

about ten or twelve hundred yards from the village, where it did not seem expedient for us to halt. These

willows furnished us with an agreeable retreat, by the side of a little brook which bubbled as it washed their

roots. The place struck our fancy, and we resolved to pass the day there. We unbridled our horses, and turned

them out to grass, stretching our own gentle limbs on the soft sod. There we courted the drowsy god of

innocent repose for a while, and then rummaged to the bottom of our wallet and our wineskin. After an

ecclesiastical breakfast, we counted up our ten tithes of Samuel Simon's money; and it mounted to a round

three thousand ducats. So that with such a sum and what we had before, it might be said, without boasting,

As it was necessary to go to market, Ambrose and Don Raphael, throwing off their dresses now the play was

over, said that they would take that office conjointly on themselves: the adventure at Xelva had only

sharpened their wit, and they had a mind to look about Segorba, just to make the experiment whether any

opportunity might offer of striking another stroke. You have no thing to do, added the heir of Lucinda's wit

and wisdom, but to wait for us under these willows: we shall not be long before we are with you again.

Signor Don Raphael, exclaimed I with a horse laugh, tell us rather to wait for you under a more substantial

tree; the gallows. If you once leave us, we are in a month's mind that we shall not see you again till the day

after the fair. This suspicion of our honour goes against the grain, replied Signor Ambrose; but we deserve

that our characters should suffer in your esteem. It is but reason that you should distrust our purity, after the

affair at Valladolid, and should fancy that we shall make it no more a matter of conscience to play at the devil

take the hindmost with you, than with the party that we left in the lurch in that town, Yet you deceive

yourselves egregiously. The gang upon whom we turned the tables were people of very bad character, and

their company began to be disreputable to us. Thus far justice must be done to the members of our profession,

that there is no bond in all civilized life less liable to be broken by personal and private interest; but when

there are no feelings in common, our good understanding will be the worse for wear, as it happens among

other descriptions of men. Wherefore, Signor Gil Blas, I entreat you, and Signor Don Alphonso as well as

you, to be somewhat more liberal in your construction of us, and to set your hearts at respecting Don

It is the easiest thing in the world, observed Lucinda's hopeful brat, to quash all subject of uneasiness on that

score: they have only to remain treasurers of the exchequer, and they will have a sufficient pledge in their

hands for our re turn. You see, Signor Gil Blas, that we are all fair and aboveboard. You shall both hold

security for our reappearance, and you may rest assured that for Ambrose and myself, we shall set off

without the slightest misgiving of your taking to your heels with so valuable a deposit. After so substantial a

proof of our good faith, will you not place implicit confidence in us? Yes, gentle men, said I, and you may do

at once whatever seems good in your own eyes. They took their departure immediately, carrying the bottle

and the wallet along with them, and left me under the willows with Don Alphonso, who said to me after they

were out of sight: Now is the time, Signor Gil Blas, now is the time to open my heart to you. I am angry with

myself for having been so easily prevailed on to herd thus far with these two knaves. You have no idea how

many times I have quarrelled with myself on that score. Yesterday evening, while I was watching the horses,

a thousand mortifying reflections rushed upon my mind. I thought it did not become a young man of

honourable principles to live among such scurvy fellows as Don Raphael and Lamela; that if by illluck

some day or other, and many a more unlikely thing has happened, the success of our swindling tricks should

throw us into the hands of justice, I might sustain the shame of being tried with them as a reputed thief, and

under going the disgraceful sentence of the law. These frightful thoughts present themselves incessantly to

my imagination, and I will own to you that I have determined, as the only means of escape from the

contamination of their bad actions, to part from them for ever. I can scarcely suppose that you will disapprove

of my design. No, I promise you, answered I: though you have seen me perform the part of the alguazil in

Samuel Simon's comedy, do not fancy that such pieces as those are got up to my taste. I take heaven to

witness that while acting in so witty a scene, I said to myself: Faith and troth, master Gil Blas, if justice

should come and lay hold of you by the wezand at this moment, you would well deserve the penitential

wages of your iniquity. I feel therefore no more disposed than yourself, Don Alphonso, to tarry longer in such

bad company; and if you think well of it, I will bear you company. When these gentlemen come back, we will

demand a balancing of the accounts, and tomorrow morning, or even tonight before tomorrow, we will

The lovely Seraphina's lover approved my proposal. Let us get to Valencia, said he, and we will embark for

Italy, where we shall be able to enter into the service of the Venetian republic. Will it not be far better to take

up the profession of arms, than to lead such a dastardly and disreputable life as we are now engaged in? We

shall even be in a condition to make a very handsome figure with the money that will be coming to us. Not

that I appropriate to myself without remorse a fund so unfairly established; but besides that necessity obliges

me to it, if ever I acquire any property in my campaigns, I make a vow to indemnify Samuel Simon. I gave

Don Alphonso to understand that my sentiments coincided with his own, and we resolved at once to separate

ourselves from our companions on the following morning before daybreak. We were above the temptation of

profiting by their absence, that is, of marching off in a hurry with the sum total of the finances: the

confidence they had reposed in leaving us masters of the whole revenue, did not permit such a thought so

Ambrose and Don Raphael returned from Segorba just at the close of day. The first thing they told us was,

that their journey had been propitious; for they had laid the cornerstone of a rascality which, to all

appearance, would turn out still better than that of the evening before. And thereupon the son of Lucinda was

going to put us in possession of the details; but Don Alphonse cut him short in his explanation, and declared

at once his intention of parting company. I announced my own wish to do the same. To no purpose did they

employ all their rhetoric, to prove to us the propriety of our accompanying them in their professional travels:

we took leave of them the next morning, after having made an equal division of our cash, and pushed on

We galloped on gaily as far as Bunol, where, as illluck would have it, we were obliged to stop. Don

Alphonso was taken ill. His disorder was a high fever, with such an access of alarming symptoms, as put me

in fear for his life. By the greatest mercy in the world, the place was not beset by a single physician, and I got

clear off without any harm but my fright. He was quite out of danger at the end of three days, and with my

nursing, his recovery was rapid and without relapse. He seemed to be very grateful for my attentions; and as

we really and truly felt a liking for each other, we swore an eternal friendship.

At length we got on our journey again, in the constant determination, when we arrived at Valencia, of

profiting by the first opportunity which might offer to go over into Italy. But heaven disposed of us

differently. We saw at the gate of a fine castle some country people of both sexes making merry and dancing

in a ring. We went near to be spectators of their revels; and Don Alphonso was never less prepared than for

the surprise which all at once came over his senses. He found it was Baron Steinbach, who was as little

backward in recognizing him, but ran up to him with open arms, and exclaimed, in accents of unbridled joy

Ah, Don Alphonso! is it you? What a delightful meeting! While search was making for you in every

My fellowtraveller dismounted immediately, and ran to embrace the baron, whose joy seemed to me of an

extravagant nature. Come, my longlost son, said the good old man, you shall now be informed of your own

birth, and know the happy destiny that awaits you. As he uttered these words, he conducted him into the

castle. I went in along with them; for while they were exchanging salutations, I had alighted and tied our

horses to a tree. The lord of the castle was the first person whom we met. He was about the age of fifty, and a

very welllooking man. Sir, said Baron Steinbach as he introduced Don Alphonso, behold your son. At these

words, Don Caesar de Leyva, for by that title the lord of the castle was called, threw his arms round Don

Alphonso's neck, and weeping with joy, muttered indistinctly, My dear son, know in me the author of your

being. If I have for so long left you in ignorance of your birth and family, rest assured that the self denial

was mine in the most painful degree. I have a thousand times been ready to burst with anxiety, but it was

impossible to act otherwise. I had married your mother from sheer attachment, for her origin was very

inferior to mine. I lived under the control of an austere father, whose severity rendered it necessary to keep

secret a marriage contracted without his sanction. Baron Steinbach, and he alone, was in my confidence: he

brought you up at my request, and under my directions. At length my father is laid with his ancestors, and I

can own you for my son and heir. This is not all; I can give you for a bride a young lady whose rank is on a

level with my own. Sir, interrupted Don Alphonso, make me not pay too dear for the happiness you have just

been throwing in my lap. May I not be told that I have the honour of being your son without being informed

at the same time that you are determined to make me miserable? Ah, sir! be not more cruel than your own

father. If he did not consent to the indulgence of your passion, at least he never compelled you to take another

wife. My son, replied Don Caesar, I have no wish to exercise a tyranny over your inclinations, which I

spurned at in my own case. But have the good manners just to see the lady I design for you, that is all I

CH III. An unfortunate occurrence, which terminated to the high delight of Don Alphonso. Gil Blas meets with an adventure which places him all at once in a very superior situation. 193

require from your filial duty. Though a lovely creature and a very advantageous match, I promise never to

force you into marriage. She is now in this castle. Follow me; you will be obliged to acknowledge that you

have rarely seen a more attractive object. So saying, he led Don Alphonso into a room where I made myself

There was the Count de Polan with his two daughters, Seraphina and Julia, and Don Ferdinand de Leyva, his

soninlaw, who was Don Caesar's nephew. Don Ferdinand, as was mentioned before, had eloped with Julia,

and it was on the occasion of the marriage between these two lovers that the peasantry of the neighbourhood

were collected on this day to congratulate the bride and bride groom. As soon as Don Alphonso made his

appearance, and his father had introduced him to the company, the Count de Polan rose from his chair and ran

to embrace him, saying Welcome, my deliverer! Don Alphonso, added he, addressing his discourse to

him, observe the power of virtue over generous minds. Though you have killed my son, you have saved my

life. I lay aside my resentment for ever, and give you that very Seraphina whose honour you protected from

invasion. In so doing, my debt to you is paid. Don Caesar's son was not wanting in acknowledgments to the

Count de Polan, nor could he be otherwise than deeply affected by his goodness; and it maybe doubted

whether the discovery of his birth and parentage touched his felicity more nearly than the intelligence that he

was the destined husband of Seraphina. This marriage was actually solemnized some days afterwards, to the

As I was one of the Count de Polan's deliverers, this nobleman, who knew me again immediately, said that he

would take upon himself the care of making my fortune. I thanked him for his liberality, but would not leave

Don Alphonso, who made me steward of his household, and honoured me with his confidence. A few days

after his marriage, still harping upon the trick which had been played to Samuel Simon, he sent me to return

to that cozened shopkeeper all the money which had been filched from him. I went therefore to make

restitution. This was setting up the trade of a steward, but beginning at the wrong end: they ought all of them

to end with restitution; but nine hundred and ninetynine out of a thousand think it double trouble, and

AWAY went I to Xelva with three thousand ducats under my charge, as an equivalent to Samuel Simon for

the amount of his loss. I will have the honesty to own, that my fingers itched as I jogged along, to transfer

these funds to my own account, and begin my stewardship in character, since everything in this life depends

upon setting out well. There was no risk in preferring instinct to principle: because it was only to ride about

the country for five or six days, and come home upon a brisk trot as if I had done my business and made the

best of my way. Don Alphonso and his father would never have believed me capable of a breach of trust. Yet,

strange to tell, I was proof against so tempting a suggestion: it would scarcely be too much to say, that

honour, not the fear of being found out, was the spring of so praiseworthy a decision; and as times go, that is

saying a great deal for a lad, whose conscience had been pretty well seasoned by keeping company with a

succession of scoundrels. Many people who have not that excuse, but frequent worshipful society, will

wonder how such squeamishness should have prevailed over my good sense: treasurers of charities in

particular; persons who have the wills of relations in their custody, and do not exactly like the contents; in

short, all those whose characters stand higher than their principles, will find food for reflection in my

After having made restitution to the merchant, who little thought ever to have seen one farthing of his

property again, I returned to the castle of Lena. The Count de Polan had taken his departure, and was far on

his journey to Toledo with Julia and Don Ferdinand. I found my new master more wrapped up than ever in

Seraphina; his Seraphina equally wrapped up in my master, and Don Caesar just as much wrapped up as

either in the contemplation of the happy couple. My object was to gain the goodwill of this affectionate

father, and I succeeded to my wish. The whole house was placed implicitly under my superintendence

nothing was done without my special direction; the tenants paid their rents into my hands; the disbursements

of the family were all under my revision; and the subordinate situations in the household were at my disposal

without appeal; and yet the power of tyrannizing did not give me the inclination, as it has always hitherto

done to my equals and superiors. I neither turned away the male servants, because I did not like the cut of

their beards, nor the female ones because they happened not to like the cut of mine. If they made up to Don

Caesar or his son at once, without currying my favour as the channel of all good graces, far from taking

umbrage at them on that account, I spoke out officiously in their behalf. In other respects, too, the marks of

confidence my two masters were incessantly lavishing on me inspired me with a substantial zeal for their

service. Their interest was my real object: there was no slight of hand in my ministry; I was such a caterer for

the general good, as you rarely meet with in private families or in political societies.

While I was hugging myself on the wellearned prosperity of my condition, love, jealous of my dealings with

fortune, was bent on sharing my gratitude by the addition of a higher zest, he planted, watered, and ripened in

the heart of Dame Lorenza Sephora, Seraphina's confidential woman, an abundant crop of liking for the

happy steward. My Helen, not to sink the fidelity of the historian in the vanity of the man, could not be many

months short of her fiftieth year. But for all that, a look of wholesomeness, a face none of the ugliest, and two

goodlooking eyes of which she knew the efficient use, might make her still pass for a decent bit of

amusement in a summer evening. I could only just have been thankful for a little more relief to her

complexion, since it was precisely the colour of chalk; but that I attributed to maiden concealments, which

The lady ogled me for a long time, with ogles that savoured more of passion than of chastity; but instead of

communing in the language of the eyes, I made pretence at first not to be sensible of my own happiness. Thus

did my gallantry appear as if arrayed in its first blushes; a circumstance which was rather tempting than

repulsive to her feelings. Taking it into her head, therefore, that there was no standing upon dumb eloquence

with a young man who looked more like a novice than he was, at our very first interview she declared her

sentiments in broad, unequivocal terms, that I might have no plea for misinterpretation. She played her part

like an old stager: affected to be overwhelmed with confusion while she was speaking to me; and after having

said all she wanted to say in a good audible voice, put her hand before her face, to hide the shame which was

not there, and make me believe that she was incommoded by the delicacy of her own feelings. There was no

standing such an attack; and though vanity had a larger share in my surrender than the tender passion, I did

not receive her overtures ungraciously. Nay, more, I presumed to overlook decorum in my vivacity, and acted

the impatient lover so naturally as to call down a modest rebuke upon my freedoms. Lorenza chid my

fondness, but with so much fondness in her chidings, that while she prescribed to me the coldness of an

anchorite, it was very evident she would have been miserably disappointed if I had taken her prescription. I

should have pressed the affair at once to the natural termination of all such affairs, if the lovely object of my

ardent wishes had not been afraid of giving me a lefthanded opinion of her virtue, by abandoning the works

before the siege was regularly formed. This being so, we parted, but with a promise to meet again: Sephora in

the full persuasion that her reluctant resistance would stamp her for a vestal in my esteem, and myself full of

the sweet hope that the torments of Tantalus would soon be succeeded by an elysium of enjoyment.

My affairs were in this happy train, when one of Don Caesar's under servants brought me such a piece of

news, as gave an ague to my raptures. This lad was one of those inquisitive inmates who apply either an ear

or an eye to every keyhole in a house. As he paid his court constantly to me, and served up some fresh piece

of scandal every day, he came to tell me one morning that he had made a pleasant discovery; and that he had

no objection to letting me into the fun, on condition that I would not blab: because Dame Lorenza Sephora

was the theme of the joke, and he was afraid of becoming obnoxious to her resentment and revenge. I was too

much interested in coming at the story he had to tell, not to swear myself into discretion through thick and

thin; but it was necessary that my motive should seem curiosity and not personal concern, so that I asked him,

with an air of as much indifference as I could put on, what was this mighty discovery about which he made

such a piece of work. Lorenza, whispered he, smuggles the surgeon of the village every evening into her

apartment: he is a tight vessel, well armed and manned; and the pirate generally stays pretty long upon his

cruise. I do not mean to say, added he, with supercilious candour but that all this may be perfectly innocent

on both sides, but you cannot help admitting, that where a young man does insinuate himself slily into a girl's

Though this tale gave me as much uneasiness as if I had been verily and romantically in love, I had too much

sense to let him know it; but so far stifled my feelings as to laugh heartily at a story which struck at the very

life of all my hopes. But when no witnesses were by, I made myself full amends for having gulped down my

rising indignation. I blustered and stormed; muttered blessings on them the wrong way, and swore outright:

but all this without coming nearer to a decision on my own conduct. At one time, holding Lorenza in utter

contempt, it was my good pleasure to give her up altogether, without condescending so far as to come to any

explanation with the coquette. At an other time, laying it down as a principle, that my honour was concerned

in making the surgeon an example to all intriguers, I spirited up my courage to call him out. Thus dangerous

valour prevailed over safe indifference. At the approach of evening I placed myself in ambuscade; and sure

enough the gentleman did slink into the temple of my Vesta, with a fear of being found out that spoke rather

unfavourably for the purity of his designs. Nothing short of this could have kept my rage alive against the

chilliness of the night air. I immediately quitted the precincts of the castle, and posted myself on the high

road, where the gay deceiver was sure to be intercepted on his return. I waited for him with my fighting

spirits on the full boil: my impatience increased with the lapse of time, till Mars and Bellona seemed to

inhabit my frame, and enlarge it beyond human dimensions. At length my antagonist came in sight. I took a

few strides, such as bully Mars or Bellona might have taken; but I do not know how the devil it came to pass,

my courage went further off as my body came nearer; my frame was contracted within somewhat less than its

human dimensions, and my heart felt exactly like the heart of a coward. The hearts of Homer's heroes felt

exactly the same, when the dastardly dogs were not backed by a supernatural drawcansir! In short, I was just

as much out of my element as ever Paris was, when he pitted himself against Menelaus in single combat. I

began taking measure of this operator in love, war, and anatomy. He appeared to be large limbed and well

knit, with a sword by his side of a most abominable length. All this made me consider, that the better part of

valour is discretion: nevertheless, whether from the superiority of mind over the nervous system in a case of

honour, or from whatever other cause, though the danger grew bigger as the distance diminished, and in spite

of nature, which pleaded obstinately that honour is a mere scutcheon, and can neither set a leg nor take away

the grief of a wound, I mustered up boldness enough to march forward towards the surgeon sword in hand.

My proceeding seemed to him to be of the drollest. What is the matter, Signor Gil Blas? exclaimed he. Why

all this fire and fury? You are in a bantering mood, to all appearance. No, good master shaver, answered I, no

such thing; there never was anything more serious since Cain killed Abel. I am determined to try the

experiment, whether as little preparation serves your turn in the field of battle as in a lady's chamber. Hope

not that you will be suffered to possess without a rival that heaven of bliss in which you have been indulging

but this moment at the castle. By all the martyrdoms we phlebotomizers have ever suffered or inflicted!

replied the surgeon, setting up a shout of laughter, this is a most whimsical adventure. As heaven is my

judge! appearances are very little to be trusted. At this put off, fancying that he had no keener stomach for

cold iron than myself, I got to be I ten times more over bearing. Teach your parrot to speak better Spanish,

my friend, interrupted I; do you think we do not know a hawk from a hernshaw? Imagine not that the simple

denial of the fact will settle the business. I see plainly, replied he, that I shall be obliged to speak out, or some

mischief must happen either to you or me. I shall therefore disclose a secret to you; though men in our

profession cannot be too much on the reserve. If Dame Lorenza sends for me into her apartment under

suspicious circumstances, it is only to conceal from the servants the knowledge of her malady. She has an

incurable ulcer in her back, which I come every evening to dress. This is the real occasion of those visits

which disturb your peace. Henceforward, rest assured that you have her all to yourself. But if you are not

satisfied with this expectation, and are absolutely bent on a fencing match, you have only to say so; I am not a

man to turn my back upon a game at sword play. With these words in his mouth he drew his long rapier,

which made my heart jump into my throat, and stood upon his guard. It is enough, said I, putting my sword

up again in its scabbard, I am not a wild beast, to turn a deaf ear to reason: after what you have told me, there

is no cause of enmity between us. Let us shake hands. At this proposal, by which he found out that I was not

such a devil of a fellow as he had taken me for, he returned his weapon with a laugh, met my advances to be

From that time forward Sephora never came into my thoughts but with the most disgusting associations. I

shunned all the opportunities she gave me of entertaining her in private, and this with so obvious a study,

almost bordering on rudeness, that she could not but notice it. Astonished at so sudden a reverse, she was

dying to know the cause, and at length, finding the means of pinning me down to a t�te�t�te, Good Mr

Steward, said she, tell me, if so please you, why you avoid the very sight of me! It is true that I made the first

advances; but then you fed the consuming fire. Recall to memory, if it is not too great a favour, the private

interview we had together. Then you were a magazine of combustibles, now you are as frozen as the north

sea. What is the meaning of all this? The question was not a little difficult of solution, for a man

unaccustomed to the violence of amorous interrogatories. The consequence was, that it puzzled me most

confoundedly. I do not precisely recollect the identical lie I told the lady, but I recollect perfectly that nothing

but the truth could have affronted her more highly. Sephora, though by her mincing air and modest outside

one might have taken her for a lamb, was a tigress when the savage was roused in her nature. I did think, said

she, darting a glance at me full of malice and hideousness, I did think to have conferred such honour as was

never conferred before, on a little scoundrel like you, by betraying sentiments which the first nobility in the

country would make it their boast to excite. Fitly indeed am I punished for having preposterously lowered

That was pretty well; but she did not stop there: I should have come off too cheaply on such terms. Her fury

taking a long lease of her tongue, that brawling instrument of discord rung a bob major of invective, each

strain more clamorous and confounding than the former. It certainly was my duty to have received it all with

cool indifference, and to have considered candidly that in triumphing over female reserve, and then not taking

possession of the conquest, I had committed that sin against the sex, which would have transformed the most

feminine of them into a Sephora. But I was too irritable to bear abuse, at which a man of sense in my place

would only have laughed; and my patience was at length exhausted. Madam, said I, let us not rake into each

other's personal misfortunes, If the first nobility in the country had only looked at your back, they would have

forgotten all your other charms, and have boasted but little of the sentiments they had excited you to betray. I

had no sooner laid in this home stroke, then the enraged duenna visited me with the hardest box on the ear

that ever yet proceeded from the delicate fingers of a woman scorned. Such favours might pall on repetition;

so I did not wait for a second, but took shelter in the nimbleness of my legs from the clatter of castigation she

I returned thanks to the protecting powers for having brought me clear off from this unequal encounter, and

fancied that I had nothing further to apprehend, since the lady had taken corporal vengeance. It was likely,

too, that she would be wise and hold her tongue, for the honour of her own back: and, in point of fact, a full

fortnight had elapsed without my hearing a word upon the subject The very tingling in my own cheek began

to abate, when I was told that Sephora was taken ill. With that forgiveness of injuries so natural to me, I was

sincerely afflicted at the news. I really felt for the poor lady. I concluded that, unable to contend with a

passion so ill repaid, that hapless victim of her own tenderness was giving up the ghost. It was with exquisite

pain that I turned this subject in my thoughts. I was the cruel cause that her heart was breaking; and my pity

at least was the duenna's, though love is too wayward to be controlled by advice. But I was miserably

mistaken in her nature. Her tenderness had all curdled into acrimonious hatred; and at that very moment was

One morning while I was with Don Alphonso, that amiable young master of mine was absent, moody, and

out of spirits. I inquired respectfully what was the matter. I am vexed to the soul, said he, to find Seraphina

weak, unjust, ungrateful. You are not a little surprised at this, added he, remarking the expression of

astonishment with which I heard him; yet nothing is more strictly and lamentably true. I know not what

reason you have given Dame Lorenza to be at variance with you; but true it is, you are become so unbearably

hateful to her, that if you do not get out of this castle as soon as possible, her death, she says, must be the sure

consequence. You cannot but suppose that Seraphina, who knows your value, used all her influence at first

against a prejudice to which she could not administer without injustice and ingratitude. But though the best of

women, she is still a woman. Sephora brought her up, and she loves her like a mother. Should her old nurse

die shortly, she would fancy she had her death to answer for, had she refused herself to any of her whims. For

my own part, with all my affection towards Seraphina, and it is none of the weakest, I will never be guilty of

so mean a compliance as to side with her on this question. Perish our duennas, perish the whole system of our

Spanish vigilance! but never let me consent to the banishment of a young man whom I look upon rather as a

When Don Alphonso had thus expressed his sentiments, I said to him: My good sir, I am born to be the mere

whippingtop of fortune. It had been my hope that she would leave off persecuting me when under your roof,

where everything held out to me happy days and an unruffled life. Now, the part for honour to take is to tear

myself away, whatever hankering I may feel after my continuance. No, no, exclaimed the generous son of

Don Caesar. Leave me to bring Seraphina to a proper view of things. It shall never be said that you are

sacrificed to the caprices of a duenna, who, on every occasion, has but too much influence over the family.

All you will get by it, sir, replied I, will only be to put Seraphina in an ill humour by opposing her wishes. I

had much rather withdraw than run the risk, by a longer abode here, of sowing division between a married

pair, who are a model of conjugal felicity. Such a consequence of my unhappy quarrel would make me

Don Alphonso absolutely forbade me to take any hasty step; and I found him so determined in the intention

of standing by me, that Lorenza must infallibly have been thrown into the background, if I had chosen to have

stood an election against her. There were moments when, exasperated against the duenna, I was tempted to

keep no measures with her; but when I came to consider that to unravel this surgical mystery would be to

plunge a dagger into the heart of a poor creature, whose curse had been my fastidious prejudice against an

ulcerated back, and whom a physical and mental misfortune were conjointly handing down to the grave; I lost

all feeling but that of compassion towards her. It was evident, since I was so portentous a phenomenon, that it

was my imperious duty to reestablish the tranquillity of the castle by my absence; and that duty I performed

the next morning before daybreak, without taking any leave of my two masters, for fear they should oppose

my departure from a misplaced partiality towards me. My only notice was to leave behind in my chamber a

memorial, containing an exact account of my receipts and disbursements during the time of my stewardship.

I WAS mounted on a good horse, my own property, and was the bearer of two hundred pistoles, the greater

part of which arose from the plunder of the vanquished banditti, and the forfeiture of Samuel Simon by the

Inquisition; for Don Alphonso, without requiring me to account for any part of the said forfeiture, had made

restitution of the entire sum out of his own funds. Thus, considering my effects, however obtained, as

converted into lawful property by a sort of vicarious sponsorship, I took them into my good graces without

any remorse of conscience. An estate like this rendered it absurd to throw away any thought about the future;

and a certain likelihood of doing well, which always hangs about a young man at my age, held out an

additional security against the caprices of fortune. Besides, Toledo offered me a retreat exactly to my mind.

CH. II. What happened to Gil Blas after his retreat from the castle of Leyva; shewing that those who are crossed in love are not always the most miserable of mankind. 198

There could not be a doubt but the Count de Polan would take a pleasure in giving a kind reception to one of

his deliverers, and would insist on his accepting an apartment in his own house. But I only looked upon this

nobleman as a very distant resource; and determined, before laying any tax on his grateful recollection, to

spend part of my ready cash in travelling over the provinces of Murcia and Grenada, which I had a very

particular inclination to see. With this intention I took the Almanza road, and afterwards, following the route

chalked out, travelled from town to town as far as the city of Grenada, without stumbling on any sinister

occurrence. It should seem as if fortune, wearied out with the schoolgirl's tricks she had been playing me,

was contented at last to leave me as she found me. But she still had her skittish designs upon me, as will be

One of the first persons I met in the streets of Grenada was Signor Don Ferdinand de Leyva, soninlaw, as

well as Don Alphonso, of the Count de Polan. We were both of us equally surprised at meeting so far from

home. How is this, Gil Blas? exclaimed he; to find you in this city! What the devil brings you hither? Sir, said

I, if you are astonished at seeing me in this country, you will be ten times more so when you shall know why

I have quitted the service of Signor Don Caesar and his son. Then I recounted to him all that had passed

between Sephora and myself, without garbling the facts in any particular. He laughed heartily at the recital;

then, recovering his gravity, My friend, said he, my mediation is at your service in this affair. I will write to

my sisterinlaw . . . . No, no, sir, interrupted I, do not write upon the subject, I beseech you. I did not quit

the castle of Leyva to go back again. You may, if you please, make another use of the kindness you have

expressed for me. If any of your friends should be looking out for a secretary or a steward, I should be much

obliged to you to speak a good word in my favour. I will take upon me to assure you that you will never be

reproached with recommending an improper object. You have only to command me, answered he: I will do

whatever you desire. My business at Grenada is to visit an old aunt in an ill state of health. I shall be here

three weeks longer, after which I shall set out on my return to my castle of Lorqui, where I have left Julia.

That is my lodging, added he, shewing me a house about a hundred yards from us. Call upon me in a few

And, in fact, so it was; for the very first time that we came together again, he said to me: My Lord

Archbishop of Grenada, my relation and friend, is in want of a young man with some little tinge of literature,

who can write a good hand and make fair copies of his manuscripts; for he is a great author. He has

composed I know not how many homilies, and still goes on composing more every day, which he delivers to

the high edification of his audience. As you seem to be just the thing for him, I have mentioned your name,

and he has promised to take you. Go, and make your bow to him as from me; you will judge, by his reception

The situation was, to all appearance, exactly what I should have picked out for myself. That being the case,

with such an arrangement of my air and person as seemed most likely to square with the ideas of a reverend

prelate, I presented myself one morning before the archbishop. If this were a gorgeous romance, and not a

grave history, here might we introduce a pompous description of the episcopal palace, with architectural

digressions on the structure of the building: here would be the place to expatiate on the costliness of the

furniture like an upholsterer, to criticise the statues and pictures like a connoisseur; and the pictures

themselves would be nothing to the uninformed reader, without the stories they represent, till universal

history, fabulous and authentic, sacred and profane, should be pressed into the service. But I shall content

myself with modestly stating, that the royal palace itself is scarcely superior in magnificence.

Throughout the suite of apartments, there was a complete mob of ecclesiastics and other officers, consisting

of chaplains, ushers, upper and menial servants. Those of them who were laymen were most superbly attired;

one would sooner have taken them for temporal nobility than for spiritual understrappers. They were as proud

as the devil; and gave themselves intolerably consequential airs. I could not help laughing in my sleeve, when

I considered who and what they were, and how they behaved. Set a beggar on horseback! said I. These gentry

are in luck to carry a pack without feeling the drag of it; for surely if they knew they were beasts of burden,

CH. II. What happened to Gil Blas after his retreat from the castle of Leyva; shewing that those who are crossed in love are not always the most miserable of mankind. 199

they would not jingle their bells with so high a toss of the head. I ventured just to speak to a grave and portly

personage who stood sentinel at the door of the archbishop's closet, to turn it upon its hinges as occasion

might require. I asked him civilly if there was no possibility of speaking with my lord archbishop. Stop a

little, said he, with a supercilious demeanour and repulsive tone: his grace will shortly come forth, to go and

hear mass: you may snatch an audience for a moment as he passes on. I answered not a single syllable.

Patience was all I had for it; and it even seemed advisable to try and enter into conversation with some of the

jacks in office: but they began conning me over from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head, without

condescending to favour me with a single interjection; after which they winked at one another, whispered,

and looked out at the corners of their eyes, in derision of the liberty I had assumed, by intruding upon their

I felt more fool that I did so, quite out of countenance at such cavalier treatment from a knot of state footmen.

My confusion was but beginning to subside, when the closet door opened. The archbishop made his

appearance. A profound silence immediately ensued among his officers, who quitted at once their insolent

behaviour, to adopt a more respectful style before their master. That prelate was in his sixtyninth year,

formed nearly on the model of my uncle, Gil Perez the canon, which is as much as to say, as broad as he was

long. But the highest dignitaries should always be the most amply gifted; accordingly his legs bowed inwards

to the very extremity of the graceful curve, and his bald head retained but a single lock behind: so that he was

obliged to ensconce his pericranium in a fine woollen cap with long ears. In spite of all this, I espied the man

of quality in his deportment, doubtless, because I knew that he actually happened to be one. We common

fellows, the fungous growth of the human dunghill, look up to great lords with a facility of being overawed,

which often furnishes them with a Benjamin's mess of importance, when nature has denied even the most

The archbishop moved towards me in a minuet step, and kindly inquired what I wanted. I told him I was the

young man about whom Signor Don Ferdinand de Leyva had spoken to him. He did not give me a moment to

go on with my story. Ah! is it you, exclaimed he, is it you of whom so fine a character has been given me? I

take you into my service at once; you are a mine of literary utility to me. You have only to take up your

abode here. Talking thus condescendingly, he supported himself between two ushers, and moved onwards

after having given audience to some of his clergy, who had ecclesiastical business to communicate. He was

scarcely out of the room, when the same officers who had turned upon their heel, were now cap in hand to

court my conversation. Here the rascals are, pressing round me, currying favour, and expressing their sincere

joy at seeing me become as it were an heir loom of the archbishopric. They had heard what their master had

said, and were dying with anxiety to know on what footing I was to be about him; but I had the ill nature not

My lord archbishop was not long before he returned. He took me with him into his closet for a little private

conference. I could not but suppose that he meant to fathom the depth of my understanding. I was

accordingly on my guard, and prepared to measure out my words most methodically. He questioned me first

in the classics. My answers were not amiss; he was convinced that I had more than a schoolboy's

acquaintance with the Greek and Latin writers. He examined me next in logic; nor could I but suppose that he

would examine me in logic. He found me strong enough there. Your education, said he, with some degree of

surprise, has not been neglected. Now let us see your handwriting. I took a blank piece of paper out of my

pocket, which I had brought for the purpose. My ghostly father was not displeased with my performance. I

am very well satisfied with the mechanical part of your qualifications, exclaimed he, and still more so with

the powers of your mind. I shall thank my nephew, Don Ferdinand, most heartily, for having sent me so fine

We were interrupted by some of the neighbouring gentry, who were come to dine with the archbishop. I left

them together, and withdrew to the second table, where the whole household, with one consent, insisted on

giving me the upper hand. Dinner is a busy time at an episcopal ordinary; and yet we snatched a moment to

CH. II. What happened to Gil Blas after his retreat from the castle of Leyva; shewing that those who are crossed in love are not always the most miserable of mankind. 200

make our observations on each other. What a mortified propriety was painted on the outside of the clergy?

They had all the look of a deputation from a better world: strange to think how place and circumstance

impose on the deluded sense of men! It never once came into my thoughts that all this sanctity might possibly

be a false coin; just as if there could be nothing but what appertained to the kingdom above, among the

I was seated by the side of an old valetdechambre, by name Melchior de la Ronda. He took care to help me

to all the nice bits. His attentions were not lost upon me, and my good manners quite enraptured him. My

worthy sir, said he, in a low voice after dinner, I should like to have a little private talk with you. At the same

time he led the way to a part of the palace where we could not be overheard, and there addressed me as

follows: My son, from the very first instant that I saw you, I felt a certain prepossession in your favour. Of

this I will give you a certain proof, by communicating in confidence what will be of great service to you. You

are here in a family where true believers and painted hypocrites are playing at cross purposes against each

other, It would take an antediluvian age to feel the ground under your feet. I will spare so long and so

disgusting a study, by letting you into the characters on both sides. After this, if you do not play your cards, it

I shall begin with his grace. He is a very pious prelate, employed without ceasing in the instruction of the

people, whom he brings back to virtue, like sheep gone astray, by sermons full of excellent morality, and

written by himself. He has retired from court these twenty years, to watch over his flock with the zeal of an

affectionate pastor. He is a very learned person, and a very impressive declaimer: his whole delight is in

preaching, and his congregation take care he should know that their whole delight is in hearing him. There

may possibly be some little leaven of vanity in all this heavenlymindedness; but, besides that it is not for

human fallibility to search the heart, it would ill become me to rake into the faults of a person whose bread I

eat. Were it decent to lay my finger on anything unbecoming in my master, I should discommend his

starchness. Instead of exercising forbearance towards frail churchmen, he visits every peccadillo, as if it were

a heinous offence. Above all, he prosecutes those with the utmost rigour of the spiritual court, who, wrapping

themselves up in their innocence, appeal to the canons for their justification, in bar of his despotic authority.

There is besides another awkward trait in his character, common to him with many other people of high rank.

Though he is very fond of the people about him, he pays not the least attention to their services, but lets them

sink into years without a moment's thought about securing them any provision. If at any time he makes them

any little presents, they may thank the goodness of some one who shall have spoken up in their behalf: he

would never have his wits enough about him to do the slightest thing for them as a volunteer.

This is just what the old valetdechambre told me of his master. Next, he let me into what he thought of the

clergymen with whom we had dined. His portraits might be likenesses; but they were too hardfeatured to be

owned by the originals. It must be admitted, however, that he did not represent them as honest men, but only

as very scandalous priests. Nevertheless, he made some exceptions, and was as loud in their praises as in his

censure of the others. I was no longer at any loss how to play my part so as to put myself on an equal footing

with these gentry. That very evening, at supper, I took a leaf out of their book, and arrayed myself in the

convenient vesture of a wise and prudent outside. A clothing of humility and sanctification costs nothing.

Indeed it offers such a premium to the wearer, that we are not to wonder if this world abounds in a

I HAD been after dinner to get together my baggage, and take my horse from the inn where I had put up, and

afterwards returned to supper at the archbishop's palace, where a neatly furnished room was got ready for me,

and such a bed as was more likely to pamper than to mortify the flesh. The day following, his grace sent for

CH. III. Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's favourite, and the channel of all his favours. 201

me quite as soon as I was ready to go to him. It was to give me a homily to transcribe. He made a point of

having it copied with all possible accuracy. It was done to please him; for I omitted neither accent, nor

comma, nor the minutest tittle of all he had marked down. His satisfaction at observing this was heightened

by its being unexpected. Eternal Father! exclaimed he in a holy rapture, when he had glanced his eye over all

the folios of my copy, was ever anything seen so correct? You are too good a transcriber not to have some

little smattering of the grammarian. Now tell me with the freedom of a friend: in writing it over, have you

been struck with nothing that grated upon your feelings? Some little careless idiom, or some word used in an

improper sense? Oh! may it please your grace, answered I with a modest air, it is not for me, with my

confined education and coarse taste, to aim at making critical remarks. And though ever so well qualified, I

am satisfied that your grace's works would come out pure from the essay. The successor of the apostles

smiled at my answer. He made no observation on it; but it was easy to see, through all his piety, that he was

an arrant author at the bottom: there is some thing in that dye, that not heaven itself can wash out.

I seemed to have purchased the feesimple of his good graces by my flattery. Day after day did I get a step

further in his esteem; and Don Ferdinand, who came to see him very often, told me my footing was so firm,

that there could not be a doubt but my fortune was made. Of this my master himself gave me a proof some

little time afterwards: and the occasion was as follows: One evening in his closet be rehearsed before me,

with appropriate emphasis and action, a homily which he was to deliver the next day in the cathedral. He did

not content himself with asking me what I thought of it in the gross, but insisted on my telling him what

passages struck me most. I had the good fortune to pick out those which were nearest to his own taste, his

favourite common places. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation for a man who had a quick

and natural relish of the real and less obvious beauties in a work. This, indeed, exclaimed he, is what you may

call having discernment and feeling in perfection! Well, well, my friend! it cannot be said of you,

In a word, he was so highly pleased with me, as to add in a tone of extraordinary emotion Never mind, Gil

Blas! henceforward take no care about hereafter; I shall make it my business to place you among the favoured

children of my bounty. You have my best wishes; and to prove to you that you have them, I shall take you

These words were no sooner out of his mouth, than I fell at his grace's feet, quite overwhelmed with

gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the

high road to a very handsome fortune. Yes, my child, resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut

short by the rapidity of my prostration, I mean to make you the receiver general of all my inmost

ruminations. Hearken attentively to what I am going to say. I have a great pleasure in preaching. The Lord

sheds a blessing on my homilies; they sink deep into the hearts of sinners; set up a glass in which vice sees its

own image, and bring back many from the paths of error into the high road of repentance. What a heavenly

sight, when a miser, scared at the hideous picture drawn by my eloquence of his avarice, opens his coffers to

the poor and needy, and dispenses the accumulated store with a liberal hand! The voluptuary, too, is snatched

from the pleasures of the table; ambition flies at my command to the wholesome discipline of the monastic

cell; while female frailty, tottering on the brink of ruin, with one ear open to the siren voice of the seducer,

and the other to my saintly correctives, is restored to domestic happiness and the approving smile of heaven,

by the timely warnings of the pulpit. These miraculous conversions, which happen almost every Sunday,

ought of themselves to goad me on in the career of saving souls. Nevertheless, to conceal no part of my

weakness from my monitor, there is another reward on which my heart is intent, a reward which the seraphic

scrupulousness of my virtue to little purpose condemns as too carnal; a literary reputation for a sublime and

elegant style. The honour of being handed down to posterity as a perfect pulpit orator has its irresistible

attractions. My compositions are generally thought to be equally powerful and persuasive; but I could wish of

all things to steer clear of the rock on which good authors split, who are too long before the public, and to

CH. III. Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's favourite, and the channel of all his favours. 202

To this end, my dear Gil Blas, continued the prelate, there is one thing requisite from your zeal and

friendship. Whenever it shall strike you that my pen begins to contract, as it were, the ossification of old age,

whenever you see my genius in its climacteric, do not fail to give me a hint. There is no trusting to one's self

in such a case; pride and conceit were the original sin of man. The probe of criticism must he intrusted to an

impartial standerby, of fine talents and unshaken probity. Both those requisites centre in you: you are my

choice, and I give myself up to your direction. Heaven be praised, my lord, said I, there is no need to trouble

yourself with any such thoughts yet. Besides, an understanding of your grace's mould and calibre will last out

double the time of a common genius; or to speak with more certainty and truth, it will never be the worse for

wear, if you live to the age of Methusalem. I consider you as a second Cardinal Ximenes, whose powers,

superior to decay, instead of flagging with years, seemed to derive new vigour from their approximation with

the heavenly regions. No flattery, my friend! interrupted he. I know myself to be in danger of failing all at

once. At my age one begins to be sensible of infirmities, and those of the body communicate with the mind. I

repeat it to you, Gil Blas, as soon as you shall be of opinion that my head is not so clear as usual, give me

warning of it instantly. Do not be afraid of offending by frankness and sincerity, to put me in mind of my

own frailty will be the strongest proof of your affection for me. Besides, your very interest is concerned in it,

for if it should, by any spite of chance towards you, come to my ears that the people say in town, "His grace's

sermons produce no longer their accustomed impression, it is time for him to abandon his pulpit to younger

candidates," I do assure you most seriously and solemnly, you will not only lose my friendship, but the

provision for life that I have promised you. Such will be the result of your silly tampering with truth.

Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an echo of his speech, and a promise of obeying

him in all things. From that moment there were no secrets from me; I became the prime favourite. All the

household, except Melchior de la Ronda, looked at me with an eye of envy. It was curious to observe the

manner in which the whole establishment, from the highest to the lowest, thought it necessary to demean

themselves towards his grace's confidential secretary; there was no meanness to which they would not stoop

to curry favour with me; I could scarcely believe they were Spaniards. I left no stone unturned to be of

service to them, without being taken in by their interested assiduities. My lord archbishop, at my entreaty,

took them by the hand. He got a company for one, and fitted him out so as to make a handsome figure in the

army. Another he sent to Mexico, with a considerable appointment which he procured him; and I obtained a

good slice of his bounty for my friend Melchior. It was evident from these facts, that if the prelate was not

particularly active in good works, at least he rarely gave a churlish refusal, when any one had the courage to

But what I did for a priest seems to deserve being noticed more at large. One day a certain licentiate, by name

Lewis Garcias, a welllooking man still in the prime of life, was presented to me by our steward, who said

Signor Gil Blas, in this honest ecclesiastic you behold one of my best friends. He was formerly chaplain

to a nunnery. Scandal has taken a few liberties with his chastity. Malicious stories have been trumped up to

hurt him in my lord archbishop's opinion, who has suspended him, and unfortunately is so strongly prejudiced

by his enemies, as to be deaf to any petition in his favour. In vain have we interested the first people in

These first people in Grenada, said I, have gone the wrong way to work. It would have been much better if no

interest at all had been made for the reverend licentiate. People have only done him a mischief by

endeavouring to serve him. I know my lord archbishop thoroughly: entreaties and importunate

recommendations do but aggravate the ill condition of a clergyman who lies under his displeasure: it is but a

very short time ago since I heard him mutter the following sentiment to himself The more persons a priest,

who has been guilty of any misconduct, engages to speak to me in his behalf, the more widely is the scandal

of the church disseminated, and the more severe is my treatment of the offender. That is very unlucky, replied

the steward; and my friend would be put to his last shifts if he did not write a good hand. But, happily, he has

the pen of a ready scribe, and keeps his head above water by the exercise of that talent. I was curious to see

whether this boasted hand writing was so much better than my own. The licentiate, who had a specimen in his

CH. III. Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's favourite, and the channel of all his favours. 203

pocket, shewed me a sheet which I admired very much: it had all the regularity of a writingmaster's copy. In

looking over this model of penman ship, an idea occurred to me. I begged Garcia to leave this paper in my

hands, saying, that I might be able to do something with it which should turn out to his advantage; that I

could not explain myself at that moment, but would tell him more the next day. The licentiate, to whom the

steward had evidently talked big about my capacity to serve him, withdrew in as good spirits as if he had

I was in earnest in my endeavour that he should be so, and lost no time in setting to work. Happening to be

alone with the archbishop, I produced the specimen. My patron was delighted with it. Seizing on this

favourable opportunity, May it please your grace, said I, since you are determined not to put your homilies to

the press, I should very much like them at last to be transcribed in this masterly manner.

I am very well satisfied with your performance, answered the prelate, but yet I own that it would be a

pleasant thing enough to have a copy of my works in that hand. Your grace, replied I, has only to signify your

wishes. The man who copies so well is a licentiate of my acquaintance. It will give him so much the more

pleasure to gratify you, as it may be the means of interesting your goodness to extricate him from the

The prelate could not do otherwise than inquire the name of this licentiate. I told him it was Lewis Garcias.

He is in despair at having drawn down your censure upon him. That Garcias, interrupted he, if I am not

mistaken, was chaplain in a convent of nuns, and has been brought into the ecclesiastical court as a

delinquent. I recollect some very heavy charges which have been sent me against him. His morals are not the

most exemplary. May it please your grace, interrupted I in my turn, it is not for me to justify him in all points;

but I know that he has enemies. He maintains that the authors of the informations you have received are more

bent on doing him an ill office than on vindicating the purity of religion. That very possibly may be the case,

replied the archbishop; there are a great many firebrands in the world. Besides, though we should take it for

granted that his conduct has not always been above suspicion, he may have repented of his sins; in short, the

mercies of heaven are infinite, however heinous our transgressions. Bring that licentiate before me, I take off

Thus it is that men of the most austere character descend from their altitudes, when interest or a favourite

whim reduces them to the level of the frail. The archbishop granted, without a struggle, to the empty vanity of

having his works well copied, what he had refused to the most respectable applications. I carried the news

with all possible expedition to the steward, who communicated it to his friend Garcias. That licentiate, on the

following day, came to return me thanks commensurate with the favour obtained. I presented him to my

master, who contented himself with giving him a slight reprimand, and put the homilies into his hand, to copy

them out fair. Garcias performed the task so satisfactorily, that he was reinstated in the cure of souls, and was

afterwards preferred to the living of Gabia, a large market town in the neighbourhood of Grenada.

WHILE I was thus rendering myself a blessing first to one and then to the other, Don Ferdinand de Leyva

was making his arrangements for leaving Grenada. I called on that nobleman before his departure, to thank

him once more for the advantageous post he had procured me. My expressions of satisfaction were so lively,

that he said My dear Gil Blas, I am delighted to find you in such good humour with my uncle the

archbishop. I am absolutely in love with him, answered I. His goodness to me has been such as I can never

sufficiently acknowledge. Less than my present happiness could never have made me amends for being at so

great a distance from Don Caesar and his son. I am persuaded, replied he, that they are both of them equally

chagrined at having lost you. But possibly you are not separated for ever; fortune may some day bring you

CH. IV. The Archbishop is afflicted with a stroke of apoplexy. How Gil Blas gets into a dilemma, and how he gets out. 204

together again. I could not hear such an idea started without being moved by it. My sighs would find vent;

and I felt at that moment so strong an affection for Don Alphonso, that I could willingly have turned my back

on the archbishop and all the fine prospects that were opening to me, and have gone back to the castle of

Leyva, had but a mortification taken place in the back of the scarecrow which had frightened me away. Don

Ferdinand was not insensible to the emotions that agitated me, and felt himself so much obliged by them, that

he took his leave with the assurance of the whole family always taking an anxious interest in my fate.

Two months after this worthy gentleman had left us, in the luxuriant harvest of my highest favour, a lowering

storm came suddenly over the episcopal palace; the archbishop had a stroke of apoplexy. By dint of

immediate applications and good nursing, in a few days there was no bodily appearance of disease remaining.

But his reverend intellects did not so easily recover from their lethargy. I could not help observing it to

myself in the very first discourse that he composed. Yet there was not such a wide gap between the merits of

the present and the former ones, as to warrant the inference that the sun of oratory was many degrees

advanced in its postmeridian course. A second homily was worth waiting for; because that would clearly

determine the line of my conduct. Alas, and welladay! when that second homily came, it was a

knockdown argument. Sometimes the good prelate moved forward, and sometimes he moved backwards;

sometimes he mounted up into the garret; and sometimes dipped down into the cellar. It was a composition of

more sound than meaning, something like a superannuated schoolmaster's theme, when he attempts to give

his boys more sense than he possesses of his own, or like a capuchin's sermon, which only scatters a few

I was not the only person whom the alteration struck. The audience at large, when he delivered it, as if they

too had been pledged to watch the advances of dotage, said to one another in a whisper all round the church

Here is a sermon, with symptoms of apoplexy in every paragraph. Come, my good Coryphaeus of the

public taste in homilies, said I then to myself prepare to do your office. You see that my lord archbishop is

going very fast you ought to warn him of it, not only as his bosom friend, on whose sincerity he relies,

but lest some blunt fellow should anticipate you, and bolt out the truth in an offensive manner. In that case

you know the consequence; you would be struck out of his will, where no doubt you have a more convertible

But as reason, like Janus, looks at things with two faces, I began to consider the other side of the question; the

hint seemed difficult to wrap up so as to make it palatable. Authors in general are stark mad on the subject of

their own works, and such an author might be more testy than the common herd of the irritable race: but that

suspicion seemed illiberal on my part, for it was impossible that my freedom should he taken amiss, when it

had been forced upon me by so positive an injunction. Add to this, that I reckoned upon handling the subject

skilfully, and cramming discretion down his throat like a highseasoned epicurean dish. After all my pro and

con, finding that I risked more by keeping silence than by breaking it, I determined to venture on the delicate

Now there was but one difficulty; a difficulty indeed! how to open the business. Luckily the orator himself

extricated me from that embarrassment, by asking what they said of him in the world at large, and whether

people were tolerably well pleased with his last discourse. I answered that there could be but one opinion

about his homilies; but that it should seem as if the last had not quite struck home to the hearts of the

audience, like those which had gone before. Do you really mean what you say, my friend? replied he, with a

sort of wriggling surprise. Then my congregation are more in the temper of Aristarchus than of Longinus!

No, may it please your grace, rejoined I, quite the contrary. Performances of that order are above the reach of

vulgar criticism: there is not a soul but expects to be saved by their influence. Nevertheless, since you have

made it my duty to be sincere and unreserved, I shall take the liberty of just stating that your last discourse is

not written with quite the overpowering eloquence and conclusive argument of your former ones. Does not

CH. IV. The Archbishop is afflicted with a stroke of apoplexy. How Gil Blas gets into a dilemma, and how he gets out. 205

This ignorant and stupid frankness of mine completely blanched my master's cheek; but he forced a fretful

smile, and said Then, good Master Gil Blas, that piece does not exactly hit your fancy? I did not mean to

say that, your grace, interrupted I, looking very foolish. It is very far superior to what any one else could

produce, though a little below par with respect to your own works in general. I know what you mean, replied

he. You think I am going down hill, do not you? Out with it at once. It is your opinion that it is time for me to

think of retiring? I should never have had the presumption, said I, to deliver myself with so little reserve, if it

had not been your grace's express command. I act in entire obedience to your grace's orders; and I most

obsequiously implore your grace not to take offence at my boldness. I were unfit to live in a Christian land!

interrupted he, with stammering impatience; I were unfit to live in a Christian land if I liked you the less for

such a Christian virtue as sincerity. A man who does not love sincerity sets his face against the distinguishing

mark between a friend and a flatterer. I should have given you infinite credit for speaking what you thought,

if you had thought anything that deserved to be spoken. I have been finely taken in by your outside shew of

Though completely unhorsed, and at the enemy's mercy, I wanted to make terms of decent capitulation, and

to go unmolested into winter quarters: but let those who think to appease an exasperated author, and

especially an author whose ear has been long attuned to the music of his own praises, take warning by my

fate. Let us talk no more on the subject, my very young friend, said he. You are as yet scarcely in the

rudiments of good taste, and utterly incompetent to distinguish between gold and tinsel. You are yet to lean

that I never in all my life composed a finer homily than that unfortunate one which had not the honour of

your approbation. The immortal part of me, by the blessing of heaven on me and my congregation, is less

weighed down by human infirmity than when the flesh was stronger. We all grow wiser as we grow older,

and I shall in future select the people about me with more caution; nor submit the castigation of my works but

to a much abler critic than yourself. Get about your business! pursued he, giving me an angry shove by the

shoulders out of his closet; go and tell my treasurer to pay you a hundred ducats, and take my priestly

blessing in addition to that sum. God speed you, good Master Gil Blas! I heartily pray that you may do well

in the world! There is nothing to stand in your way, but the want of a little better taste.

I MADE the best of my way out of the closet, cursing the caprice, or more properly the dotage of the

archbishop, and more in dudgeon at his absurdity, than cast down at the loss of his good graces. For some

time it was a moot point whether I should go and lay claim to my hundred ducats; but after having weighed

the matter dispassionately, I was not such a fool as to quarrel with my bread and butter. There was no reason

why that money, fairly earned, should deprive me of my natural right to make a joke of this ridiculous

prelate; in which good deed I promised myself not to be wanting, as often as himself or his homilies were

I went therefore and asked the treasurer for a hundred ducats, without telling a word about the literary warfare

between his master and me. Afterwards I called on Melchior de la Ronda, to take a long leave of him. He was

too much my friend not to sympathize with my misfortune. While I was telling my story vexation was

strongly imprinted on my countenance. In spite of all his respect for the archbishop, he could not help

blaming him; but, when in the fever of my resentment I threatened to be a match for the prelate, and to

entertain the whole city at his expense, the prudent Melchior gave me a salutary caution: Take my advice, my

dear Gil Blas, and rather pocket the affront. Men of a lower sphere in life should always be cap in hand to

people of quality, whatever may be their grounds of complaint. It must be admitted, there are some very

coarse specimens of greatness, which in themselves are scarcely deserving of the least respect or attention;

but even such animals have their weapons of annoyance, and it is best to keep out of their way.

CH. V. The course which Gil Blas took after the archbishop had given him his dismissal. His accidental meeting with the licentiate who was so deeply in his debt, and a picture of gratitude in the person of a parson. 206

I thanked the old valetdechambre for the good counsel he had given me, and promised to be guided by it.

Pleased with my deference to his opinion, he said to me: If you go to Madrid, be sure you call upon my

nephew, Joseph Navarro. He is factotum in the family of Signor Don Balthazar de Zunigna, and I can venture

to recommend him as a lad in every respect worthy of your friendship. He is just as nature made him, with all

the vivacity of youth, courteous in his manners, and forward to oblige; I could wish you to get acquainted

with him. I answered that I would not fail to go and see this Joseph Navarro as soon as I should get to

Madrid, whither I meant to return in due time. Then did I turn my back on the episcopal palace, never to

grace it with my presence again. If I had kept my horse, I should perhaps have set out for Toledo

immediately; but I had sold it during the period of my administration, supposing that I was in office for life,

and should not henceforward be migratory. My final resolution was to hire a readyfurnished lodging, as I

had made up my mind to stay another month in Grenada, and then to pay the Count de Polan a visit.

As dinnerhour was drawing nigh, I asked my landlady if there was any eatinghouse in the neighbourhood.

She answered that there was a very good one within a few yards of her house, where the accommodations

were excellent, and the company select and numerous. I made her shew me where it was, and went thither

sharp set. I was shewn into a large room, resembling the hall of a monastery in everything but good cheer.

There were ten or a dozen men sitting at a long table, with a cloth spread over it that fretted in its own grease;

but they, with unoffended nostrils, were engaged in general conversation, though they dined individually,

each having a miserable scrap for his portion. The people of the house brought me my allowance, which at

another time would have turned my stomach, and have made me sigh after the luxuries of the table I had just

lost. But at this moment I was so indignant against the archbishop, that the homely fare of a paltry

eatinghouse seemed more palatable than the dainties of his sumptuous board. It was a burning shame to see

such a waste of provisions served up in soups and sauces to pamper the appetite. Arguing like a deep

examiner in the economy of the human frame, and reasoning medically as well as philosophically, on the

disproportion between the simple wants of nature and the complexity of luxurious indulgence; cursed be they,

said I, who invented those pernicious dinners and suppers, where one must sit on the tenterhooks of

selfdenial, for fear of overloading the storehouse and shop of the whole body! Man wants but little here

below; and provided he can but keep body and soul together, the less he eats the better. Thus did I, in my

surly vein, give utterance to wise saws; which, however just in theory, had hitherto been little recommended

While I was dispatching my commons, without any danger of a surfeit from repletion, the licentiate Lewis

Garcias, who had got the living of Gabia in the manner abovementioned, came into the room. The moment

he recognized me, he ran into my arms with all the cordiality of friendship, or rather with the extravagant joy

of a lover after a long exile from his mistress. He folded me repeatedly within his sincere embrace, and I was

compelled to stand the brunt of a longwinded compliment on the unparalleled disinterestedness of my

conduct towards him. Gratitude is a fine virtue; and yet it is wearisome when carried beyond due bounds! He

took his seat next me, saying: Well! a parson must not swear; though by the mass, my dear patron, since my

good fortune has thrown me in your way, we will not part without a jovial glass. But as there is no good wine

in this shabby inn, I will take you, if you please, after our makeshift dinner, to a place where I will treat you

with a couple of bottles, rich, genuine, and old, in comparison of which the Falernian of Horace was all a

farce. The church will give us absolution, in the cause of gratitude! If I could but get you for a few days down

at my parsonage of Gabia! Maecenas was never more welcome to the poet's Sabine farm, than the author of

all my ease and comfort to the choicest produce of a glebe which is mine only by your benevolence.

While he was holding this highflown language, his little slice of dinner was set before him. He fell to

without the fear of indigestion before his eyes, still heightening the luxury of the repast at intervals, by fine

speeches addressed to me in the most fulsome style of flattery. I took the opportunity, when his mouth was

filled with something more substantial, to edge in a word or two amidst the torrent; and as he had not

forgotten to ask after his friend the steward, I made no bones about acknowledging that I was no longer a

hangeron of the church. I even went so far as to particularize the most trivial circumstances attending my

resignation, to all of which he listened with an attentive ear. After all his fine professions, who would not

have expected to see him moved even to tears with the throes of resentful gratitude, to hear him thunder bulls

and interdicts against the superannuated archbishop? The devil a bit! he did neither the one thing nor the

other. But his countenance fell, and his whole air was that of an absent man; the rest of his dinner was bolted

down without the garnish of intermediate talk about Maecenas; as soon as he had done, he hurried from table

without minding grace or gratitude, wished me good day with a cold and distant air, and got off as fast as

possible. The unfeeling scoundrel, perceiving that I was no longer in a situation for him to pump anything out

of me, would not even take the trouble to draw a decent veil over his dirty principles. But such a blackguard

could excite no other sensation than contempt and laughter. Looking at him with derision, the fittest

chastisement for fellows like these, I called after him loud enough to be heard by the whole room: Stop there,

you nun's priest! Go and put those two bottles in ice against Maecenas comes to the Sabine farm! Be sure

No sooner had Garcias rid the room of his presence, than two gentlemen came in, extremely well dressed, and

took their seats close by me. They began talking about the players of the Grenada company, and about a new

piece which just then had a great run. According to their account, it was quite the town talk. Nothing would

do for me, but to go and see it that very day. I had never been at the play since my residence at Grenada. As I

had lived nearly the whole time in the archbishop's palace, where all such profane shews were condemned as

uncanonical, I had been cut off from every recreation of that sort. All my knowledge of men and manners was

I repaired therefore to the theatre at the appointed hour, and found a very full house. All around me,

discussions were going on about the piece before the curtain drew up; and there was not a soul in the

numerous assembly but had some remark to make upon it. One liked it, another could not bear it. Do not you

think the dialogue is particularly happy? said a candid critic on my right. Was there ever such miserable stuff!

cried a snarling critic on my left. In good truth, if bad authors abound, it must be admitted that the public are

at variance about what is good and what is bad: but the bad judges have a right to be pleased for their money;

and as they far outnumber the good ones, their favourite writers can never want employment. When one only

considers through what an ordeal dramatic poets have to pass, it is a matter of wonder that any should be

found hardy enough at once to contend against the ignorance of the multitude, and the random shot of those

selfcreated guides in matters of taste, who always pretend to lead the blindness of the public judgment, and

At length the buffoon of the piece came forward by way of prologue. As soon as his grotesque countenance

was visible, there was a general clapping of hands; a sure indication of his being one of those spoiled actors,

who are allowed to take any liberties with the pit, and to be applauded through thick and thin, in fact, this

player neither opened his lips, nor moved a muscle, without exciting the most extravagant raptures. He would

have performed better, had he been less conscious what a favourite he was. But he presumed on that

circumstance most abominably. I observed that he sometimes forgot what was set down for him, and took the

licence of adding to his part out of his own free fancy; a common cause of complaint against low comedians,

which, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. Would the audience but

receive such mirth with hisses, instead of crying bravo, they might restrain the absurd practice, and purge the

Some of the other performers were greeted with the usual tokens on their entrance, and particularly an actress

who played the chambermaid. There was something about her which more than usually attracted my

attention; and language must sink under the labour of expressing my astonishment at tracing the features of

CH. VI. Gil Blas goes to the play at Grenada. His surprise at seeing one of the actresses, and what happened thereupon. 208

Laura, that fair, that chaste, that inexpressible she, whom I supposed to be still at Madrid, warbling in one

key, with hands, sides, voice, and mind incorporate with Arsenia. But there could be no doubt of her identity.

The kick in her gallop, the leer in her eye, and the tripping pertness of her tongue, all conspired in evidence

that there could be no mistake. Yet, as if I had refused belief to the affidavit of my own eyes and ears, I asked

her name of a gentleman who was sitting beside me. What the deuce! Why, where do you come from? said

he. You must unquestionably be a new importation, not to have seen or heard of the divine Estella.

The likeness was too perfect for me to be mistaken. It was easy to comprehend why Laura, changing her

sphere of action, changed her name also; wherefore from curiosity to know how matters stood with her, since

the public always pry into the most private concerns of theatrical persons, I inquired of the same man whether

this Estella had any particular affair of gallantry on her hands. He informed me that for the last two months

there had been a great Portuguese nobleman at Grenada, his name was the Marquis de Marialva, who had laid

out a great deal of money upon her. He might have told me more, if I had not been afraid of becoming

troublesome with my questions. I was better employed in musing on the information this good gentleman had

given me, than in attending to the play; and if any one had asked me what it was all about, when the piece

was over, I should have been puzzled for an answer. I could do nothing but decline Laura and Estella through

all cases and numbers; till at length I boldly made up my mind to call at her house the next day. Not but there

was some risk as to the reception she might give me: it might be suspected, without excess of modesty, that

my appearance would give her no great pleasure in the high tide of her affairs; nor was it at all improbable

that so good an actress, to revenge herself on a man, with whom certainly she had an account to settle, might

look strange, and swear she had never seen his face before. Yet did none of these apprehensions deter me

from my venture. After a light supper, for all the meals at my eating house were regulated on principles of

economy and temperance, I withdrew to my chamber with an anxious longing for the next day.

My sleep was short and interrupted; so that I got up by daybreak. But as it was to be recollected that a

mistress in high keep was not likely to be visible early in the morning, I passed three or four hours in

dressing, shaving, powdering, and perfuming. It was my business to present myself before her in a trim, not

to put her to the blush at acknowledging my acquaintance. I sallied forth about ten o'clock, and knocked at

her door, after having inquired her address at the theatre. She was living on the first floor of a large and

elegant house. I told a chambermaid who opened the door to me, that a young man wanted to speak with her

lady. The chambermaid went in to give my message, when all at once I heard her mistress call out, not in the

besttempered tone in the world, Who is the young man? What does he want? Shew him up stairs.

This was a hint to me that my time was ill chosen; that probably her Portuguese lover was at her toilette, and

that she spoke so loud, with the laudable design of convincing him that she was not a sort of girl to allow of

any impertinent intruders. This conjecture of mine turned out to be the fact; the Marquis de Marialva lounged

away almost every morning with her: I had made up my mind to be kicked downstairs by way of welcome;

but that admirable actress, never forgetting her cue, ran forward with open arms at the sight of me,

exclaiming: Ah! my dear brother, is it you that I behold? On the strength of so near a kindred, she was no

niggard of her embraces; but recollected her self so far as to say, turning round to the Portuguese, My lord,

you must excuse me if nature will put in her claim, and trench upon good breeding. After three years of

absence, I cannot see a brother once again, whom I love so tenderly, without expressing my feelings in all

their warmth. Come! my dear Gil Blas, continued she, addressing me afresh, tell me some news of the family:

This whimsical scene disconcerted me at first; but I was not long in seeing through Laura's intention; and

playing up to her with a spirit scarcely less than her own, answered according to the plot: Heaven be praised,

sister, all our good folks are in perfect health, and well in the world. I make no doubt, resumed she, but you

must be very much surprised to find me an actress in Grenada; but hear me first and blame me afterwards. It

is three years, as you may recollect, since my father thought to have established me advantageously in

marriage with Don Antonio Coello, an officer in the service, who took me from the Asturias to Madrid, his

CH. VI. Gil Blas goes to the play at Grenada. His surprise at seeing one of the actresses, and what happened thereupon. 209

native place. Six months after our arrival, he got into an affair of honour in consequence of his violent

temper. Some attentions incautiously paid to me were the cause of the affray, and his antagonist was killed.

This gentle man was of a family high in rank and interest. My husband, who though well born, had very few

connections, made his escape into Catalonia with every thing he could get together in jewels and ready

money. He embarked at Barcelona, went over into Italy, enlisted in the Venetian service, and finally lost his

life in the Morea, fighting against the Turks. In the mean time, a landed estate which constituted our whole

revenue was confiscated, and I was left a widow with very little for my support. What was to be done in so

pressing an emergency? There was nothing left to pay my travelling expenses back into the Asturias. And

then what should I have done there? I should have got nothing from my family but a long string of

condolences, which would have furnished me neither with food nor with raiment. On the other hand, I had

been too well brought up to fall into those courses, into which too many poor young women are betrayed for

the sake of a scandalous subsistence. There was but one thing remaining for me to determine on. I turned

So tingling a sense of ridicule came over me, when Laura wound up her romance with this pious motive for

turning actress, that I could scarcely refrain from relieving myself by a fit of laughter. But gravity was of too

much consequence to be dispensed with; and I said to her with an air the counterpart of her own My dear

sister, I entirely approve of your conduct, and am heartily glad to meet with you at Grenada, and moreover

The Marquis de Marialva, who had not lost a word of all these fine speeches, swallowed down blindfold

whatever Don Antonio's widow thought fit to drench his credulity with. He took part in the conversation too,

and asked me whether I had any fixed employment in Grenada or elsewhere, I paused for a moment to

consider whether and after what manner I should lie; but as there seemed no need in this case to draw on my

invention, I told the truth by way of variety. In a plain matter of fact manner did I rehearse my introduction to

the archbishop's palace, and my discharge therefrom, to the infinite amusement of his Portuguese lordship. To

be sure, in telling the truth, I did not keep my word, for I could not help launching out a little at the

archbishop's expense, in spite of my solemn promise given to Melchior. But the best of the joke was, that

Laura, taking my story for a fiction invented after her example, burst out into peals of laughter: whereas the

whimsicality of the circumstance would have raised a soberer mirth, had she known it to have been alloyed

After having come to the end of my tale, which closed with just mentioning the lodging I had taken, dinner

was announced. I instantly motioned to with draw, as if intending to take that frugal meal at home; but Laura

would not hear of it. Do you mean to affront me, brother! said she. You must dine here. Indeed, I cannot

think of your staying any longer at a paltry inn. You must positively board and lodge in my house. Send your

His Portuguese lordship, possibly not altogether relishing this excess of hospitality even to a brother, then

interfered between us, and said to Laura No, Estella, you have not sufficient accommodation to give him a

bed without inconvenience. Your brother seems to be a clever young fellow; and the circumstance of his

being so nearly related to you, gives him a strong claim on my kindness. He shall be put at once upon my

establishment. I am in want of a secretary, and shall delight in giving him the appointment: he shall be my

righthand man. Let him be sure to come and sleep at my house this very night; I will order a room to be got

ready for him. I will fix his regular salary at four hundred ducats; and if on better acquaintance I have reason

as I trust I shall, to be satisfied with him, I will place him in a situation to laugh at the consequences of

My acknowledgments to the marquis for this high honour were followed by those of Laura, who far exceeded

me in powers of panegyric. Let us drop the subject, interrupted he; it is a settled point Settled as it was, he

confirmed the contract on the lips of his greenroom Dulcinea, and went his way. She immediately pulled me

CH. VI. Gil Blas goes to the play at Grenada. His surprise at seeing one of the actresses, and what happened thereupon. 210

by the arm into a closet, where, secure from interruption, she cried out, Cut my laces! I shall burst if I do not

give way at once to the fit of laughter that is coming over me. And so she probably would; for she threw

herself into an armchair, and holding both her sides, shouted out her convulsive peal of mirth like a mad

woman. It was impossible for me to refrain from following her example. When we had exhausted our risible

propensities, Own, Gil Blas, said she, that we have just been acting a very humorous farce. But I did not look

for the concluding scene. My only thought was to secure you board and lodging under my own roof; and

there was no other possibility of making the proposition in a modest way but by passing you off for my

brother. But I am heartily glad that the chapter of accidents has opened with so good a berth for you. The

Marquis de Marialva is a noble man of liberal and honourable sentiments, who will be better than his word in

what he does for you. But confess now! There is scarcely a woman in existence except myself would have

given so comingon a reception to a fellow who shirks his friends without saying with your leave or by your

leave. I however am one of those simplehearted girls, who are glad to receive back again the base man they

have once loved, though he should have offended and repented seven, or even seven thousand times.

The best way for me was to acknowledge the extreme illbreeding of which I had been guilty, to blush and

beg pardon once for all. After this explanation, she led the way to a very handsome diningroom. We placed

ourselves at table, where having a chambermaid and a footboy for eyewitnesses, we kept within the bounds

of brother and sister. When we had done dinner, we went back again into the same closet where we had been

conversing before. Having our time to ourselves, my paragon of a Laura, giving herself up to her natural love

of merriment, and to her no less natural curiosity, required from me a faithful and true narrative of all my

pros and cons, my ins and outs, since that unmannerly separation of ours. I gave her a full and particular

account: nothing extenuating on my own behalf, nor setting down aught in malice on the other side. When I

had quenched her thirst after a story, she slaked mine, by communicating the particulars of her eventful life to

I SHALL just run over to you, as briefly as possible, the circumstances which led me to embrace the

After you took French leave, so much to your credit, great events happened. My mistress Arsenia, more

surfeited with a glut of pleasures than scandalized at their immorality, renounced the stage, and took me with

her to a fine estate which she had just purchased in the neighbourhood of Zenora with the wages of her sinful

life. We soon got acquainted in the town. Our visits there were very frequent; and sometimes for a day or two

together. With the exception of these little excursions, we were as closely domesticated as probationers in a

On one of our high days and holidays, Don Felix Moldonado, the corregidor's only son, saw me by chance,

and took a liking to me. He soon found an opportunity of speaking with me in private; and, as it is in vain to

affect modesty before one who knows me so well, there was some little contrivance of my own to bring the

interview about. The young gentleman was not twenty years of age; the very picture of Venus's sweetheart, or

Venus's sweetheart the very picture of him; with a form for a sculptor to work from; with an address so

elegant, and with sentiments so generous, as to throw even his personal graces into the background. There

was such a winning way with him, so pressing an earnestness to prevail, when he took a large diamond from

his own finger, and slid it upon mine, that it would have been quite brutal not to have let it stay there. It was

really something like sentiment that I began to entertain towards a swain of so interesting a character. But

what an absurd thing it is for wenches of a certain sort to hook themselves upon young men of family, when

their surly fathers hold official situations! The corregidor, who had scarcely his equal in the whole tribe of

corregidors, got wind of our correspondence, and determined to close it in a summary manner. He sent a host

of alguazils to take me into custody, who dragged me away, in spite of my cries and tears, to the house of

There, without bill of indictment or form of trial, the lady abbess ordered me to be stripped of my ring and

my clothes, and to be dressed in the habit of the institution; a long gown of grey serge tied about the middle

with a strap of black leather, whence depended a rosary with large beads swinging down to my heels. After

this pleasant reception, they took me into a hall, where there was an old monk, the deuce knows of what

order, who set to work preaching up repentance and resignation, pretty much in the same strain as Dame

Leonarda, when she exhorted you to patience in the subterraneous cavern. He told me that I was excessively

obliged indeed to those good people who had so kindly shut me up, and could never thank them sufficiently

for their good deed, in rescuing me from the harpy talons of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But I must

frankly own that all my other sins were pressed down and heaped high with ingratitude: far from overflowing

with the milk of human kindness towards those who had conferred such a favour upon me, I abused them in

Eight days thus passed in this wilderness of desolation; but on the ninth, for I had notched the hours and even

the minutes on a stick, my fate seemed be ginning to take another turn. Crossing a little court, I met the house

steward, a personage whose will was absolute; yes, the lady abbess herself was obedient to his will. He

rendered an account of his stewardship to none but the corregidor, on whom alone he was dependent, and

whose confidence in him was unbounded. His name was Pedro Zendono, and the town of Salsedon in Biscay

laid claim to the honour of his birth. Figure to yourself a tall man, with the complexion of a mummy and the

bare anatomy of a dealer in mortification; he might have sat for the penitent thief in a picture of the

crucifixion. He scarcely ever cast a carnal glance towards us Magdalens. You never saw such a face of rank

hypocrisy in all your life, though you have spent some part of it under the same roof with the archbishop, and

But to return from this digression; . . . . I met this Signor Zendono, who said to me slily as he passed Take

comfort, my girl, I am sensibly affected with your wretched case. He said no more, and went on his way,

leaving me to make my own comments on so concise and general a text As he looked like a good man, and

there was no positive evidence to set against his looks, I was simpleton enough to fancy that he had taken the

trouble of inquiring why I was shut up; and meant, not finding me so atrocious a culprit as to deserve such

shameful insults, to take my part with the corregidor. But I was not up to the tricks of the Biscayan, he had a

much longer head. He was turning over in his mind the scheme of an elopement, and made the proposal to me

in profound privacy some days afterwards. My dear Laura, said he, your sufferings have taken such deep

possession of my mind, that I have determined to end them. I am perfectly aware that my own ruin is

involved in the measure, but needs must when the tender passion drives. Tomorrow morning do I intend to

take you out of prison, and conduct you in person to Madrid. No sacrifice is too great for the pleasure of

I was very near fainting with surprise and joy at this promise of Zendono, who, concluding from my

acknowledgments that my very life depended on my rescue, had the effrontery to carry me off next day in the

face of the whole town, by the following device: He told the lady abbess that he had orders to take me

before the corregidor, who was at his country box a few miles off; and without betraying himself by a single

change of countenance, packed me off, with him for my companion, in a postchaise drawn by two good

mules which he had bought for the occasion. Our only attendant was the driver, a servant of his own, and

entirely devoted to the steward by stronger ties than those of gratitude. We began bowling away, not in the

direction of Madrid, as I had taken for granted, but towards the frontiers of Portugal, whither we got in less

time than it took the corregidor of Zamora to receive the deposition of our flight, and uncouple his pack or set

Before we entered Braganza, the Biscayan made me put on man's clothes, with which he had taken the

precaution of providing himself. Reckoning on me as being fairly launched in the same boat with him, he said

to me in the inn where we put up, Lovely Laura, do not take it unkindly of me to have brought you into

Portugal. The corregidor of Zamora will make our own country too hot to hold us, for in his eyes we are two

criminals, under the weight of whose enormities it is not for Spain to groan. But we may set his malice at

defiance in this distant realm, though at the present conjuncture under the dominion of the Spanish monarchy.

At least we shall stand a better chance for safety here than at home. League your fortunes with those of a man

who would follow you in prosperity or in adversity through the world. Let us fix our residence at Coimbra.

There I will get employed as a spy for the inquisition; under the cover of that formidable tribunal, a

refreshing shade for us, but Cimmerian darkness to its victims, our days will glide smoothly on in ease and

A proposal so much to the point gave me to understand that I had to do with a knight, who had other motives

for officiating as the guardian of distressed damsels, besides the honour of chivalry. I saw at once that he

reckoned much on my gratitude, and still more on my distress. Nevertheless, though these two pleas were

almost equally eloquent in his favour, I rejected his addresses with disdain. The reason was, that there were

two advocates still more eloquent on the side of a refusal; a certainty that he was disagreeable, and a strong

suspicion that he was poor. But when he returned to the charge, and offered to say the grace of matrimony

before he fell to, proving to me at the same time, by the undeniable evidence of cash in hand, that his

stewardship had enabled him to live in clover for a long time to come, the truth must come out in spite of

blushes; my heart was softened, and my ears unstopped. I was dazzled by the gold and jewels which he laid

out in burning row before me, and became a living monument in my own person, that miraculous

transformations are effected by the power of pelf, as well as by the wand of love. My Biscayan became, by

little and little, quite another sort of man in my eyes. His tall body and bare bones were plumped up into a

shapely and commanding figure; his cadaverous complexion was improved into a manly brown: even that

look, as if butter would not melt in his mouth, was no longer hypocrisy, but a staid and decent aspect. Having

made these discoveries, I accepted his hand without any material abhorrence, and he plighted the usual vows

in all due form. After this, like a good wife, I kept the spirit of contradiction as much as possible under the

hatches. We resumed our journey, and Coimbra soon received a new family within its walls

My husband stocked my wardrobe as became my sex and station, making me a present of several diamonds,

among which I fixed my eye on that of Don Felix Moldonado. There were no further documents wanting to

give a shrewd guess whence came all the precious stones I had seen, and to be morally certain that I had not

married a troublesomely nice observer of the eighth article in the decalogue. Yet, considering myself as the

mainspring of all his little deviations from the strict law of propriety, it was not for me to judge harshly on

that point A woman can always find a palliation for the misdeeds which are set in motion by the power of her

own beauty. But for that, he certainly would have ranked no higher than one of the wicked in my estimation.

I had no great reason to complain of him for two or three months. His attentions were always polite and kind,

amounting apparently to a sincere and tender affection. But no such thing! These proofs of wedded love, this

worshipping with the body, and endowing with the worldly goods, were all but a copy of his countenance; for

the cheating fellow meant, as men serve a cucumber, to throw me away on the first opportunity. One

morning, at my return from mass, I found nothing at home but the bare walls; the moveables, not excepting

my own apparel, every stick and every thread, had been carried off. Zendono and his faithful servant had

taken their measures so adroitly, that in less than an hour the house had been completely gutted; so that with

nothing but the gown upon my back, and Don Felix's ring, as good luck would have it, on my finger, here

stood I, like another Ariadne, abandoned by the ungrateful rifler of my effects as well as of my charms. But

you may take my word for it, I did not beguile the sense of my misfortunes in tragedy, elegy, scene

individable, or poem unlimited. I rather fell upon my knees, and blessed my guardian angel, for having

delivered me from a rascal who must sooner or later fall into the hands of justice. The time we had passed

together I considered in the light of a dead loss, and my spirits were all on the alert to make up for it. If I had

been inclined to stay in Portugal, as a hangeron to some woman of fashion, I should have found no

difficulty in suiting myself; but whether it was patriotism, or some astrological conjunction, preparing a

better fortune for me under the influence of the planets, my whole heart was bent on getting back into Spain. I

applied to a jeweller, who valued my diamond and gave me cash for it, and then took my departure with an

This lady, whose name was Dorothea, had been to see a relation settled at Coimbra, and was on her return to

Seville, where she lived. There was such a sympathy between us, as made us fast friends on the very first day

of our acquaintance; and the attachment grew so close while we travelled together, that the lady insisted, at

our journey's end, on my making her house my home. I had no reason to repent having formed such a

connection. Never was there a woman of a more charming character. One might still conclude from the turn

of her countenance, and from the spirit not yet quenched in her eyes, that in her youth the catgut of many a

guitar must have been fretted under her window. As a proof of this, she had many trials what a state of

widowhood was; her husbands had all been of noble birth, and her finances were flourishing on the

Among other admirable qualities, she had that of not visiting severely the frailties of her own sex. When I let

her into the secret of mine, she entered so warmly into my interests, as to speak of Zendono with more

sincerity than good manners. What graceless fellows these men are! said she in a tone from which one might

infer that she had met with some lightfingered steward in the passing of her accounts. They would not be

worth picking off a dunghill, if one could do without them! There is a large fraternity of sorry scoundrels in

the world, who make it their sport to gain the hearts of women, and then desert them. There is, however, one

consoling circumstance, my dear child. According to your account, you are by no means bound fast to that

faithless Biscayan. If your marriage with him was sufficiently formal to save your credit with the world, on

the other hand, it was contracted loosely enough to admit of your trying your luck at a better match, whenever

I went out every day with Dorothea, either to church, or to visit among her friends; both likely occasions of

picking up an adventure; so that I attracted the notice of several gentlemen. There were some of them who

had a mind to feel how the land lay. They made their proposals to my venerable protectress; but these had not

wherewithal to defray the expenses of an establishment, and those were mere unfledged boys under age; an

insuperable objection, which left me very little merit in turning a deaf ear to them. One day a whim seized

Dorothea and me, to go and see a play at Seville. The bills announced a favourite and standard piece: El

Among the actresses who came upon the stage, I discovered one of my old cronies. It was impossible to have

forgotten Phenicia, that bouncing good humoured girl whom you have seen as Florimonde's waitingmaid,

and have supped with more than once at Arsenia's. I was aware that Phenicia had left Madrid above two years

ago, but had never heard of her turning actress. I longed so earnestly to embrace her, that the piece appeared

quite tedious. Perhaps, too, there might be some fault in those who played it, as being neither good enough

nor bad enough to afford me entertainment. For as to my own temper, which is that of seeking diversion

wherever I can find it, I must confess that an actor supremely ridiculous answers my purpose just as well as

At last, the moment I had been waiting for being arrived, namely the dropping of the curtain on this favourite

and standard piece, we went, for my widow would go with me, behind the scenes, where we caught a glimpse

of Phenicia, who was playing off the amiable and unaffected simpleton, and listening with all the primness of

studied simplicity to the soft chirping of a young stagefinch, who had evidently suffered himself to be caught

in the birdlime of her professional or meretricious talents. No sooner did her eye meet mine, than she quitted

him with a genteel apology, ran up to me with open arms, and lavished upon me all the demonstrations of

strong attachment imaginable. Our expressions of joy at this unexpected meeting were indeed reciprocal; but

neither time nor place admitting of any very copious indulgence in the privilege of asking questions, we

adjourned till the following day, with a promise of renewing our mutual inquiries thick and threefold, under

The pleasure of talking is the inextinguishable passion of woman, coeval with the act of breathing. I could not

get a wink of sleep all night, for the burning desire of having a grapple with Phenicia, and closing in upon her

in the conflict of curiosity. Witness all the powers who preside over tattling, whether the love of lying in bed,

another passion of woman, prevented me from getting up and flying to my appointment as early as good

manners would allow. She lived with the rest of the company in a large readyfurnished lodging. A female

attendant who met me at entrance, on being requested to shew me Phenicia's apartment, led the way upstairs

to a gallery, along which were ranged ten or twelve small rooms, divided only by partitions of deal boards,

and inhabited by this merry band. My conductress knocked at a door which Phenicia opened; for her tongue

was cruelly on the fidget to be let loose, as well as my own. We allowed ourselves no time for the impertinent

ceremonies which usually usher in a visit, but plunged at once into a most furious career of loquacity. It

seemed as if we should have a tight bout together. There were so many interrogatories to be bandied

backwards and forwards, that question and answer rebounded like tennisballs, only with tenfold velocity.

After having related our adventures each to other, and inquired into the actual condition of affairs, Phenicia

asked me how I meant to provide for myself. My reply was, that I purposed, while waiting for something

better, to get a situation with some young lady of quality. For shame, exclaimed my other self, you shall not

think of such a thing. Is it possible, my darling, that you should not yet be disgusted with menial service? Are

you not heartily sick of knocking under to the good or ill pleasure of others, of being capinhand to all their

caprices, and after all to be entertained with that unchangeable tune called a scolding, in a word, to be a

downright slave? Why do not you follow my example, and turn your thoughts towards the stage? Nothing can

be better suited to people of parts, when they happen not to be equally favoured in the articles of wealth and

birth. It is a sphere of life which holds a middle rank between the nobility and mere tradespeople; a

profession exempted from all troublesome restraint, and raised far above the common prejudices of humble

and decent Society. The public are our bankers, and we draw upon them at sight. We live in a continual round

The theatre (for she went on at a great rate) is favourable above all to women. When I lived with Florimonde,

it is a misery to think of it, I was reduced to take up with the supernumeraries of the prince's company; not a

single man of fashion paid the least attention to my figure. How came that about? Because they never got a

glimpse of it The finest picture in the world may escape the admiration of the connoisseurs, if it is not placed

in a proper light. But since I have been suitably framed and varnished, which could only happen in

consequence of a theatrical finish, what a revolution! The finest young fellows of all the towns we pass

through are shuffling at my heels. An actress therefore has all her little comforts about her, without deviating

from the line of her duty. If she is discreet, by which we mean that she should not admit more than one lover

into her good graces at a time, her exemplary conduct is cried up as without a parallel. She is called a very

Niobe for her coldness; and when she changes her favourite, she is reprimanded as slightly by the world, as a

lawful widow who marries a few weeks too soon after the death of her first husband. If, however, the widow

should look for luck in odd numbers, and take to herself a third, the contempt of all mankind is poured down

on her devoted head; she is considered as a monster of indelicacy; whereas we happier women are so much

the more in vogue, as we add to the list of our favourites. After having been served up to a hundred different

Do you mean that by way of news? interrupted I as she uttered the last sentiment. Do you imagine me to be

ignorant of these advantages? I have often conned them over in my mind, and they are but too alluring to a

girl of my character. The attractions of the stage would be irresistible, were inclination all. But some little

talent is indispensable; and I have not a spark. I have sometimes attempted to rehearse passages from plays

before Arsenia. She was never satisfied with my performance; and that disgusted me with the profession. You

are easily put out of conceit with yourself, replied Phenicia. Do not you know that these great actresses are

very apt to be jealous? With all their vanity, they are afraid lest some newer face should put them out of

countenance. In short, I would not be guided by Arsenia on that subject; she did not give her real opinion. In

my judgment, and without meaning to flatter you, the theatre is your natural element. You have admirable

powers, free and graceful action, a finetoned voice, volubility of declamation, and such a turn of

countenance! Ah! you little rogue! you will bring all the young fellows behind the scenes, if once you take to

She plied me with many flattering compliments besides; and made me recite some lines, only by way of

enabling me to form my own judgment as to my theatrical genius. Now that she was my censor, it seemed

quite another thing. She praised me up to the skies, and held all the actresses in Madrid as mere makeweights

in the scale. After such a testimony, it would have been inexcusable to hesitate about my own merit. Arsenia

stood attainted, nay, convicted of jealousy and treachery. There could be no question about my being

everything that was delightful. Two players happened to drop in by accident, and Phenicia prevailed on me to

repeat the lines I had already spouted; they fell into a sort of enthusiastic trance, whence they were roused

only to launch out fervently in admiration of me. Literally, had they all three been flattering me up for a

wager, they could not have adopted a more extravagant scale of panegyric. My modesty was not proof against

such praise from those who were themselves praised. I began to think myself really worthy of something; and

Since this is the case, said I to Phenicia, the affair is determined. I will follow your advice and engage in your

company, if they will accept me. My friend, transported with joy at this proposal, clasped me in her arms; and

her two companions seemed no less delighted than herself at finding me in that humour. It was settled that I

should attend the theatre on the following day in the morning, and exhibit before the collected body the same

sample of my talent as I had just displayed. If I had bought golden opinions from Phenicia and her friends,

the actors in general were still more complimentary in their judgment, after I had recited but twenty lines

before them. They gave me an engagement with the utmost willingness. Then there was nothing thought of

but my first appearance. To make it as striking as possible, I laid out all the money remaining from the sale of

my ring; and though my funds would not allow of being splendid in my dress, I discovered the art of

At length I came out. What clapping of hands! what general admiration! It would be speaking faintly, my

friend, to tell you downright that the spectators were all in an ecstacy. You must have heard with your own

ears what a noise I made at Seville, to believe it. The whole talk of the town was about me, and the house was

crowded for three weeks successively; so that this novelty restored the theatre to its popularity, when it was

evidently beginning to decline. Thus did I come upon the stage, and step into public favour at once. But to

come upon the stage with such distinction, is generally a prelude to coming upon the town; or at least to

putting one's self up at auction to the best bidder. Twenty sparks of all ages, from seventeen to seventy, were

on the list of candidates, and would have worn me in my newest gloss. Had I followed my own inclination, I

should have chosen the youngest, and the most of a lady's man; but in our profession, interest and ambition

must bear the sway, till we have feathered our nest; that is as invariable a rule as any in the prompt book. On

this principle, Don Ambrosio de Nisana, a man in whom age and ugliness had done their worst, but rich,

generous, and one of the most powerful noblemen in Andalusia, had the refusal of the bargain. It is true that

he paid handsomely for it. He took a fine house for me, furnished in the extreme of magnificence, allowed me

a man cook of the first eminence, two footmen, a lady's maid, and a thousand ducats a month for my personal

What a revolution in my affairs! My poor brain was completely turned. I could not believe myself to be the

same person. No wonder if girls soon forget the meanness and misery whence some man of quality has

rescued them in a fit of caprice. My confession shall be without reserve: public applause, flattering speeches

buzzed about on every side, and Don Ambrosio's passion kindled such a flame of selfconceit as kept me in a

continual ferment of extravagance. I considered my talents as a patent of nobility. I put on the woman of

fashion; and becoming as chary as I had hitherto been lavish of my amorous challengers, determined to look

My lord of Nisana brought some of his friends to sup with me every evening It was my care to invite the best

companions among our actresses, and we wore away a good part of the night in laughing and drinking. I fell

in very kindly with so delicious a life; but it lasted only six months. Men of rank are apt to be whimsical; but

for that fault, they would be too heavenly. Don Ambrosio deserted me for a young coquette from Grenada,

who had just brought a pretty person to the Seville market, and knew how to set off her wares to the best

advantage. But I did not fret after him more than fourand twenty hours, His place was supplied by a young

fellow of twoandtwenty, Don Lewis d' Alcacer, with whom few Spaniards could vie in point of face and

You will ask me, doubtless, and it is natural to do so, why I selected so green a sprig of nobility for my

paramour, when my own experience so strongly dissuaded from such a choice. But, besides that Don Lewis

had neither father nor mother, and was already in possession of his fortune, you are to know that there is no

danger of disagreeable consequences attaching to any but girls in a servile condition of life, or those

unfortunate loose fish who are game for every sportsman. Ladies of our profession are privileged persons; we

let off our charms like a rocket, and are not answerable for the damage where they fall; so much the worse for

As for Alcacer and myself, we were so strongly attached to one another, that I verily believe, love never yet

did such execution as when he took aim at us two. Our passion was of such a violent nature, that we seemed

to be under the influence of some spell. Those who knew how well we were together, thought us the happiest

pair in the world; but we, who knew best, found ourselves the most miserable. Though Don Lewis had as fine

an outside as ever fell to the lot of man, he was at the same time so jealous, that there was no living for

vexation at his unfounded surmises. It was of no use, knowing his weakness and humouring it, to lay an

embargo on my looks, if ever a male creature peeped into harbour; his suspicious temper, seldom at a loss for

some crime to impute, rendered my armed neutrality of no avail. Our most tender moments had always a

spice of wrangling. There was no standing the brunt of it; patience could hold out no longer on either side,

and we quarrelled more peaceably than we had loved. Could you believe that the last day of our being

together was the happiest? both equally wearied out by the perpetual recurrence of unpleasant circumstances,

we gave a loose to our transports when we embraced for the last time. We were like two wretched captives,

Since that adventure, I have worn a breastplate against the little archer. No more amorous nonsense for me, at

least to a troublesome excess! It is quite out of our line, to sigh and complain like Arcadian shepherdesses.

Those should never give way to a passion in private, who hold it up to ridicule before the public.

While these events were passing in my domestic establishment, Fame had not hung her trumpet breathless on

the willows; she spread it about universally that I was an inimitable actress. That celestial tattler, though

bankrupt times out of number, still contrives to revive her credit; the comedians of Grenada therefore wrote

to offer me an engagement in their company; and by way of evidence that the proposal was not to be scorned,

they sent me a statement of their daily receipts and disbursements, with their terms, which seemed to be

advantageous. That being the case, I closed, though grieved in my heart to part with Phenicia and Dorothea,

whom I loved as well as woman is capable of loving woman. I left the first laudably employed in melting the

plate of a little haggling goldsmith, whose vanity so far got the better of his avarice that he must needs have a

theatrical heroine for his mistress. I forgot to tell you that on my translation to the stage, from mere whim, I

changed the name of Laura to that of Estella; and it was under the latter name that I took this engagement at

My first appearance was no less successful here than at Seville; and I soon felt myself wafted along by the

sighs of my admirers. But resolving not to favour any except on honourable terms, I kept a guard of modesty

in my intercourse with them, which threw dust in their eyes. Nevertheless, not to be the dupe of virtues which

pay very indifferently, and were not exactly at home in their new mansion, I was balancing whether or not to

take up with a young fellow of mean extraction, who had a place under government, and assumed the style of

a gentleman in virtue of his office, with a good table and handsome equipage, when I saw the Marquis de

Marialva for the first time. This Portuguese nobleman, travelling over Spain from mere curiosity, stopped at

Grenada as he passed through it. He came to the play. I did not perform that evening. His examination of the

actresses was very particular, and he found one to his liking. Their acquaintance commenced on the very next

day; and the definitive treaty was very nearly concluded when I appeared upon the stage. What with some

personal graces, and no little affectation in setting them off, the weathercock veered about all on a sudden;

my Portuguese was mine and mine only till death do us part. Yet, since the truth must be told, I knew

perfectly that my sister of the sock and buskin had entrapped this nobleman, and spared no pains to chouse

her out of her prize; to my success you are yourself a witness. She bears me no small grudge on that account;

but the thing could not be avoided. She ought to reflect that it is the way of all female flesh; that the dearest

friends play off the same trick upon one another, and put a good face upon it into the bargain.

JUST as Laura was finishing her story, there came in an old actress who lived in her neighbourhood, and was

come to take her to the theatre as she passed by. This venerable tutelary of the stage was admirably fitted to

play some superannuated strumpet among the heathen goddesses in a pantomime. My sister was not remiss in

introducing her brother to that stale old harridan, whereupon a profusion of compliments were bandied about

I left them together, telling the steward's relict that I would join her again at the playhouse, as soon as I had

sent my baggage to the Marquis de Marialva's, to whose residence she directed me. First I went to the room I

had hired, whence, after having settled with my landlady, I repaired with a porter who carried my luggage to

a large readyfurnished house, where my new master was quartered. At the door I met his steward, who

asked me if I was not the lady Estella's brother. I answered in the affirmative. Then you are welcome, Signor

cavalier, replied he. The Marquis de Marialva, whose steward I have the honour to be, has commissioned me

to receive you properly. There is a room got ready for you; I will shew you the way to it, if you please, that

you may be quite at home. He took me up to the top of the house, and thrust me into so small a room, that a

very narrow bed, a chest of drawers, and two chairs completely filled it. This was my apartment. You will not

have much spare room, said my conductor, but as a set off, I promise you that you shall be superbly lodged

at Lisbon. I locked up my portmanteau in the wardrobe and put the key in my pocket, asking at the same time

what was the hour of supper. The answer was, that his lordship seldom supped at home, but allowed each

servant a monthly sum for board wages. I put several other questions, and learnt that the Marquis's people

were a happy set of idle fellows. After a conversation short and sweet, I left the steward to go and look for

Laura, reflecting much to my own satisfaction on the happy omens I drew from the opening of my new

As soon as I got to the playhouse door, and mentioned my name as Estella's brother, there was free admission

at once. You might have observed the forwardness of the guards to make way for me, just as if I had been one

of the most considerable noblemen in Grenada. All the supernumeraries, doorkeepers, and receivers of

checks whom I encountered in my progress, made me their very best bows. But what I should like best to

give the reader an idea of, is the serious reception which the merry vagrants gave me in the greenroom,

where I found the whole dramatis persona ready dressed, and on the point of drawing up the curtain. The

actors and actresses, to whom Laura introduced me, fell upon me without mercy. The men were quite

troublesome with their greetings; and the women, not to be outdone, laid their plastered faces alongside of

mine, till they covered it with a villanous compound of red and white. No one choosing to be the last in

making me welcome, they all paid their compliments in a breath. AEolus himself, answering from all the

points of the compass at once, would not have been a match for them: but my sister was; for the loan of her

CH. VIII. The reception of Gil Blas among the players at Grenada; and another old acquaintance picked up in the green room. 218

tongue was always at the service of a friend, and she brought me completely out of debt.

But I did not get clear off with the squeezes of the principal performers. The civilities of the scenepainters,

the band, the prompter, the candlesnuffer, and the callboy were to be endured with patience; all the

understrappers in the theatre came to see me run the gauntlet. One would have supposed one's self in a

foundling hospital, and that they had none of them ever known what sort of animals brothers and sisters were.

In the mean time the play began. Some gentlemen who were behind the scenes, then ran to get seats in the

front of the house; for my part, feeling myself quite at home, I continued in conversation with those of the

actors who were waiting to go on. Among the number there was one whom they called Melchior. The name

struck me. I looked hard at the person who answered to it, and thought I had seen him somewhere. At last I

recollected that it was Melchior Zapata, a poor strolling player, who has been described in the first volume of

I immediately took him aside, and said: I am much mistaken if you are not that Signor Melchior with whom I

had the honour of breakfasting one day by the margin of a clear fountain, between Valladolid and Segovia. I

was with a journeyman barber. We had some provisions with us which we clubbed with yours, and all three

partook of a little rural feast, to which wit and anecdote gave additional relish. Zapata bethought him for a

minute or two, and then answered: You tell me of a circumstance which often since came across my mind. I

had then just been trying my fortune at Madrid, and was returning to Zamora. I recollect perfectly that my

affairs were a little out at elbows. I recollect it too, replied I, by the token of a doublet which you wore, lined

with playbills. Neither have I forgotten that you complained of having a wife cursed with incorruptible

chastity. Oh! that misfortune has found its remedy long ago, said Zapata, shaking his ears. By all the powers

of womanhood, the jade has effectually reformed that virtue, and given me a warmer lining to my doublet.

I was going to congratulate him on his wife's having shewn so much sense, when he was obliged to leave me

and go on the stage. Being curious to know what sort of an animal his wife was, I went up to an actor and

desired him to point her out. He did so, saying at the same time: There she is, it is Narcissa; the prettiest of all

our women except your sister. I concluded that this must be the actress in whose favour the Marquis de

Marialva had declared before meeting with his Estella; and my conjecture was but too correct. After the play

I attended Laura home, where I saw several cooks preparing a handsome entertainment. You may sup here,

said she. I will do no such thing, answered I; the marquis perhaps will like to be alone with you. Not at all,

replied she; he is coming with two of his own friends and one of our gentlemen; you will just make the sixth,

You know that in our free and easy way there is no impropriety in secretaries sitting down at table with their

masters. Very true, said I: but it is rather too soon to assume the privilege of a favourite. I must first get

employed in some confidential commission, and then lay in my claim to that honourable distinction. Judging

it to be so best, I went out of Laura's house, and got back to my inn, whither I reckoned on repairing every

I REMARKED in the coffeeroom a sort of an old monk, habited in coarse grey cloth, at supper quite alone

in a corner. I went and sat opposite to him out of curiosity; we exchanged a civil bow, and he shewed himself

to be quite as well bred as I was, notwithstanding my lay education. My commons were brought me, and I fell

to with a very catholic appetite. While I was eating, my tongue was mute, but my eyes glanced by snatches

towards this singular character, and always caught his at the same employment. Liking better to stare than be

stared at, I addressed my speech to him thus: Pray, father, have we ever by any chance met anywhere but

here? You peer at me as if you scarcely knew whether I was an acquaintance or a stranger. He answered

gravely: If I look at you with fixed attention, it is only to admire the prodigious variety of adventures which

CH. IX. An extraordinary companion at supper; and an account of their conversation. 219

are chronicled in the features of your face. It should seem, said I in a joking tone, as if your reverence was

something of a physiognomist. Far more deeply imbued in science than a mere physiognomist, answered the

monk, I found prophecies on my observations which have never been belied by the event. My skill in

palmistry is no less, and I will set my oracles against the surest of antiquity, after comparing the inspection of

Though this old man had all the appearance of profound wisdom, his talk was so like that of a madman, that I

could not help laughing at him outright. So far from being offended at my want of manners, he smiled at it,

and went on to the following effect, after running his eye round the coffeeroom, to be assured that there

were no listeners: I am not surprised at finding you so prejudiced against two sciences which pass at this time

of day for mere frivolity; the long and painful study they require disheartens the learned, who turn their backs

upon them, and then swear that they are fables out of disgust at having missed their attainment. For my part, I

am not to be frightened by the darkness which envelopes them, any more than by the difficulties which are

perpetual stumblingblocks in the pursuit of chemical discoveries, and in the marvellous art of transmuting

But I do flatter myself, pursued he, looking steadfastly at me, that I am addressing a young gentleman of

good sense, to whom my systems will not appear altogether in the light of idle dreams. A sample of my skill

will dispose you better than the most subtle arguments to pass a favourable judgment on my pretensions.

After talking in this manner he drew from his pocket a phial full of a livelylooking red liquor, on which he

expatiated thus: Here is an elixir which I have distilled this morning from the juices of certain plants; for I

have employed almost my whole life, like Democritus, in finding out the properties of simples and minerals.

You shall make trial of its virtue. The wine we are drinking with our supper is very bad; henceforth it will

become excellent. At the same time he put two drops of his elixir into my bottle, which made my wine more

The marvellous strikes the imagination; and when once that faculty is enlisted, judgment is turned adrift.

Delighted with so glorious a secret, and persuaded that he must have outdevilled the devil before he could

have got at it, I cried out in a paroxysm of admiration: O reverend father! prythee forgive your servant if he

took you at first for an old blockhead. I now abjure my error. There is no need to look further to be assured

that it depends only on your own will to turn an iron bar into a wedge of gold in the twinkling of an eye. How

happy should I be were I master of that admirable science! Heaven preserve you from ever acquiring it,

interrupted the old man with a deep sigh. You know not, my son, what a fatal possession you covet. Instead

of envying, rather pity me, for having taken such infinite pains to be made unhappy. I am always disturbed in

mind. I fear a discovery; and then perpetual imprisonment would be the reward of all my labours. In this

apprehension, I lead a vagabond life, sometimes disguised as a priest or monk, sometimes as a gentle man or

a peasant. Where is the benefit of knowing how to manufacture gold on such terms? Are not the goods of this

What you say appears to me very sensible, said I to the philosopher. There is nothing like living at one's ease.

You have rid me of all hankering after the philosopher's stone. I will rest satisfied with learning from you my

future destiny. With all my heart, my good lad, answered he. I have already made my remarks upon your

features; now let me see your hand. I gave it him with a confidence which will do my penetration but little

credit in the esteem of some readers. He examined it very attentively, and then pronounced, as in a rapture of

inspiration: Ah! what transitions from pain to pleasure, and from pleasure to pain! What a whimsical

alternation of good and evil chances! But you have already experienced the largest share of your allotted

reverses. You have but few more tides of misfortune to stem, and then a great lord will contrive for you an

After having assured me that I might depend on his prediction, he bade me farewell and went out of the inn,

leaving me in deep meditation on the things I had just heard. There could be no doubt of the Marquis de

CH. IX. An extraordinary companion at supper; and an account of their conversation. 220

Marialva being the great lord in question; and consequently nothing appeared more within the verge of

possibility than the accomplishment of the oracle. But though there had not been the slightest likelihood, that

would have been no hindrance to giving the impostor monk unbounded credit, since his elixir had transmuted

my sour incredulity into the most tractable digestion of his falsehoods. That nothing might be wanting on my

side to play into the hands of my foreboded luck, I determined to attach myself more closely to the marquis

than I had ever done to any of my masters. Having taken this resolution, I went home in unusually high

spirits; never did foolish woman descend in better humour from the garret of another foolish woman who had

THE marquis was not yet returned from his theatrical party, and I found his upper servants playing at cards in

his apartment while they were waiting for his arrival. I got to be sociable with them; and we amused

ourselves with jocular conversation till two o'clock in the morning, when our master arrived. He was a little

surprised at seeing me, and said with an air of kindness which made me conclude that he came home very

well satisfied with his evening: How is this, Gil Blas? Are you not gone to bed yet? I answered that I wished

to know first whether he had any commands for me. Probably, replied he, I may have a commission to give

you tomorrow morning; but it will be time enough then to acquaint you with my wishes. Go to your own

room; and henceforward remember that I dispense with your attendance at bedtime; my other servants are

After this hint, which was much to my satisfaction in the main, since it spared me a slavery which I should

have felt very unpleasantly at times, I left the marquis in his apartment, and withdrew to my garret. I went to

bed. Not being able to sleep, it seemed good to follow the counsel of Pythagoras, and to examine all the

actions of the day by the test of reason; to reprimand severely what had been done amiss, and if anything had

On looking into the daybook of my conscience, the balance was not sufficiently in my favour to keep me in

good humour with myself. I felt remorse at having lent myself to Laura's imposition. It was in vain to urge, in

self defence, that I could not, with any decency, give the lie to a girl who had no object in view but to do me a

pleasure, and that I was in some sort under the necessity of becoming an accomplice in the fraud. This was a

paltry excuse in the darkness of the night, for I pleaded against myself that at all events the matter should be

pushed no further, and that it was the summit of impudence to remain upon the establishment of a nobleman

whose confidence I so ill repaid. In short, after a severe trial, it was agreed in my own breast, that I was very

But to have done with the morality of the act, and pass on to the probable issue, it was evidently playing a

desperate game, to cozen a man of consequence who might be enabled, as an instrument for the visitation of

my sins perhaps, to detect the imposture in its very infancy. A reflection at once so prudent and so virtuous

acted as a refrigerator on my spirits; but visions of pleasure and of interest soon raised them again above the

freezing point. Besides, the prophecy of the man with the elixir would have been enough to put me in heart

once more. I therefore gave myself up to the indulgence of the most agreeable fancies. All the rules of

arithmetic from simple addition to compound interest were set in array, to cast up what sum my salary would

amount to at the end of ten years' service. Then there was a large allowance for presents and gratuities from

my master, whose liberal disposition according admirably with my liberal desires, my imagination grew quite

fantastical, and extended the landmarks of my fortune over innumerable acres of unsubstantial territory. Sleep

overtook me in the calculation, and raised a magnificent aerial mansion on the estate where a new race of

CH. X. The Marquis de Marialva gives a commission to Gil Blas. That faithful secretary acquits himself of it as shall be related. 221

I got up the next morning about eight o'clock to go and receive my patron's orders; but as I was opening my

door to go out, what was my surprise at meeting him in his wrappinggown and night cap. He was quite

alone. Gil Blas, said he, on parting with your sister last night, I promised to pass this morning with her; but an

affair of consequence will not admit of my keeping my word. Go and assure her from me that I am deeply

mortified at the disappointment, but that I shall certainly sup with her tonight. That is not all, added he,

putting a purse into my hands and a little shagreen case set round with diamonds; carry her my portrait, and

keep this purse of fifty pistoles, which I give you as a mark of my earlyconceived friendship. I took the

picture in one hand, and in the other the purse to which I was so little entitled. I put my best leg foremost in

my way to Laura, muttering to myself in the transports of excessive joy: Good! the prophecy is accomplished

in the twinkling of an eye. What a windfall to be the brother of a girl so full of beauty and attraction! It is a

pity the credit attached to the relationship is not commensurate with the lucre and the comfort.

Laura, unlike most women in her profession, had a habit of early rising. I caught her at her toilette, where,

while waiting for her illustrious foreigner, she was engrafting on her natural beauty all the adventitious

charms which the cosmetic art could supply. Lovely Estella, said I, on accosting her, thou absolute lodestone

of the tramontanes, I may now sit down at table with my master, since he has honoured me with a

commission which gives me that prerogative, and which I am just come to fulfil. He cannot have the pleasure

of waiting on you this morning, as he had purposed; but to make you amends for the disappointment, he will

sup here this evening, and sends you his picture; which to all appearance is enclosed in something more

I put the box into her hand at once; and the lively sparkling of the brilliants which encompassed it made her

eyes sparkle and her mouth water. She opened it out of mere curiosity, looked carelessly at the painting as

people perform a duty for which they have little relish, then shut it, and once more fell greedily on the

jewellery. Their beauty made her eloquent; and she said to me with the smile of a satirist These are copies

which those mercenary things called actresses value much more highly than originals.

I next acquainted her that the generous Portuguese, when giving me charge of the portrait, recommended it to

my care by a purse of fifty pistoles. I beg you will accept of my congratulations, said she; this nobleman

begins where it is even uncommon for others to leave off. It is to you, my divine creature, answered I, that

this present is owing; the marquis only made it on the score of natural affection. I could be well pleased,

replied she, that he were to make you a score such presents every day. I cannot express in what extravagance

you are dear to me. From the first moment of our meeting, I became attached to you by so strong a tie, as

time has not been able to dissolve. When I lost you at Madrid, I did not despair of finding you again; and

yesterday, on your sudden appearance, I received you like a deodand. In a word, my friend, heaven has

created us for one another. You shall be my husband, but we must get plenty of money in the first instance. I

shall just lend myself out to three or four silly fellows more, and then you may live like a gentleman on your

I thanked her in the most appropriate terms for such an instance of extreme condescension on my behalf, and

we got insensibly into a conversation which lasted till noon. At that hour I withdrew, to go and give my

master an account of the manner in which his present was received. Though Laura had given me no

instructions thereupon, I was not remiss in composing a fine compliment on my way, with which I meant to

launch out on her pan; but it was just so much flash in the pan. For, when I got home the marquis was gone

out; and the fates had decreed that I should never see him more, for reasons which will be methodically stated

I REPAIRED to my inn, where meeting with two men of companionable talents, I dined and sat at table with

them till the play began. We parted; they as their business and desire pointed them; and, for my own part, my

bent was towards the theatre. It may be proper to observe by the way, that I had all possible reason to be in a

good humour. The conversation with my chance companions had been joyous in the extreme; the colour of

my fortune was gay and animating; yet for all that I could not help giving way to melancholy, without either

knowing why, or being able to reason myself out of it. It was doubtless a prophetic warning of the misfortune

As I entered the greenroom, Melchior Zapata came up, and told me in a low voice to follow him. He led me

to an unfrequented part of the house, and opened his business thus Worthy sir, I make it a point of

conscience to give you a very serious warning. You are aware that the Marquis de Marialva had at first taken

a fancy to Narcissa, my wife; he had even gone so far as to fix a day for trying the relish of my rib, when that

cockatrice Estella contrived to flyblow the bill of fare, and transfer the banquet to her own untainted charms.

Judge then, whether an actress can be gulled instead of gulling, and preserve the sweetness of her temper. My

wife has taken it deeply to heart, and there is no species of revenge to which she would not have recourse. A

fine opportunity has offered. Yesterday, if you recollect, all our supernumeraries were crowding together to

see you. The deputy candlesnuffer told some of the inferior comedians that he recollected you perfectly

This report, added Melchior, came to Narcissa's ears today: she lost no time in questioning the author; and

that grub of the interior stood to the whole story. He says that he knew you as Arsenia's servant, when Estella

waited on her at Madrid under the name of Laura. My wife, full of glee at this discovery, means to acquaint

the Marquis de Marialva with it, when he comes to the play this evening; so take your measures accordingly.

If you are not Estella's brother in good earnest, I would advise you as a friend, and on the score of old

acquaintance, to make your escape while your skin is whole. Narcissa, satisfied in her tender mercy with only

one victim, and that of her own sex, has allowed me to give you this notice, that you may outrun your ill luck.

It would have been waste of words to press the subject farther. I returned thanks for the caution to this fretter

of his hour, who saw by my terrified aspect that I was not the man to give the deputy candlesnuffer the lie. I

did not feel the least temptation to carry my dangerous valour such a length. I had not even the heart to go

and bid farewell to Laura, for fear she should insist on me keeping up the farce. I could easily conceive that

so excellent an actress might get out of the scrape with flying colours; but there seemed to be nothing for me

short of a swingeing castigation; and I was not so far gone in love as to stand by my sweetheart at the risk of

my own person. I thought of nothing but a precipitate retreat with my household gods, or rather goods, if such

a trumpery collection of individual property might be called so. I disappeared from the playhouse in the

twinkling of an eye; and in less time than it would have taken to confess my sins, was my portmanteau

carried off and safely lodged with a muleteer who was to set out for Toledo at three o'clock next morning. I

could have wished myself already with the Count de Polan, whose hospitable roof seemed my only safe

asylum. But I was not there yet; and it was impossible to think without dread of the time remaining to be

passed in a town where I was afraid they would hunt me out without giving me a night's law.

The smell of supper drew me to my inn notwithstanding; though I was as uneasy as a debtor who knows that

a writ is out against him. My stomach, I believe, was not sufficiently well knit that evening for my supper to

play its part as it should do. The miserable sport of fear, I watched all the people who came into the

coffeeroom, and whenever by chance they carried a gallows in their physiognomy, which is no uncommon

ensign in such places of resort, I shuddered with horrid forebodings. After having supped the supper of the

damned, I got up from table and returned to my carrier's house, where I threw myself on some clean straw till

My patience was well tried during that interval; for a thousand unpleasant thoughts attacked me in all

directions. If I dozed now and then, the enraged marquis stood before me, pounding Laura's fair face to a jelly

with his fist, and turning her whole house out at window; or to come nearer home, I heard him giving

directions for my death under the operation of a cudgel. At such a vision I started out of my sleep, and

waking, which is usually so pleasant after a frightful dream, inspired me with more horror than even the

Happily the muleteer delivered me from so dire a purgatory, by coming to acquaint me that his mules were

ready. I was immediately on my legs, and set out radically cured, for which heaven has my best thanks, of

Laura and the occult sciences. As we got farther from Grenada, my mind recovered its tone. I began chatting

with the muleteer, laughed at his droll stories, and insensibly lost all my apprehensions. I slept undisturbed at

Ubeda, where we lay the first night, and on the fourth day we got to Toledo. My first care was to inform

myself of the Count de Polan's residence, whither I repaired under the full persuasion that he would not suffer

me to lodge elsewhere. But I reckoned without my host. There was no one at home but a person to take care

of the house, who told me that his master was just gone to the castle of Leyva, having been sent for on

The count's absence was altogether unexpected: here was no longer any inducement to stay at Toledo, and all

my plans were changed at once. Finding myself so near Madrid, I resolved to go thither. It came into my head

that I might make my way at court, where talents of the first order, as I had heard, were not absolutely

necessary to fill situations of the first consequence. On the very next morning I took advantage of back

carriage, to be set down in the renowned capital of Spain. Fortune took me kindly by the hand, and

ON my first arrival at Madrid, I fixed my headquarters in a lodginghouse, where resided, among other

persons, an old captain, who was come from the distant part of New Castile, to solicit a pension at court, and

he thought his claims but too well founded. His name was Don Annibal de Chinchilla. It was not without

much staring that I saw him for the first time. He was a man about sixty, of gigantic stature, and of

anatomical leanness. His whiskers were like brushwood, fencing off the two sides of his face as high as his

temples. Besides that, he was short in his reckoning by an arm and a leg, there was a vacancy for an eye,

which Polypheme would have supplied as he did, had patches of green silk been then in the fashion; and his

features were hacked sufficiently to illustrate a treatise of geometry. With these exceptions, his configuration

was much like that of another man. As to his mental qualities, he was not altogether without understanding;

and what he wanted in quickness he made up by gravity. His principles were rigid in the extreme; and it was

After two or three interviews, he distinguished me by his confidence. I soon got into all his personal history:

he related on what occasions he had left an eye at Naples, an arm in Lombardy, and a leg in the Low

Countries. The most admirable circumstance in all his narratives of battles and sieges, was, that not a single

feature of the swaggerer peeped out; not a word escaped him to his own honour and glory; though one could

readily have forgiven him for making some little display of the half which was still extant of himself, as a

setoff against the dilapidations which had deducted so largely from the usual contexture of a man. Officers

who return from their campaigns without a scratch upon their skin or a lovelock out of place, are not always

But he told me that what gave him most uneasiness was, the having wasted a considerable portion of his

private fortune on military objects, so that he had not more than a hundred ducats a year left; a poor

establishment for such a pair of whiskers, a gentleman's lodging, and an amanuensis to multiply memorials

by wholesale. For in point of fact, my worthy friend, added he, shrugging his shoulders, I present one, with a

blessing on my endeavours, every day, and the last meets with the same attention as the first. You would say

CH. XII. Gil Blas takes lodgings in a readyfurnished house. He gets acquainted with Captain Chinchilla. That officer's character and business at Madrid. 224

that it was an even bet between the prime minister and me, which of us two shall be fired first; the

memorialist or the receiver of the memorials. I have often had the honour, too, of addressing the king on the

same subject; but the rector and his curate say grace in the same key; and in the mean time, my castle of

Faint heart never won fair lady, said I most wisely to the captain; you are perhaps on the eve of finding all

your marches and countermarches repaid with usury. I must not flatter myself with that pleasing expectation,

answered Don Annibal. It is but three days since I spoke to one of the minister's secretaries; and if I am to

trust his representations, I have only to hold up my head and look big. What then did he say to you? replied I.

Had those poor dumb mouths your wounds no eloquence, to wring a hireling pittance for their profuse

expense of blood? You shall judge for yourself, resumed Chinchilla. This secretary told me in good plain

terms: My honest friend, you need not boast so much of your zeal and your fidelity; you have only done your

duty in exposing yourself to danger for your country. Naked glory is the true and honourable recompense of

gallant actions, and as such is the prize at which a Spaniard aims. You therefore argue on false principles, if

you consider the bounty you solicit as a debt. In case it should be granted, you will owe that favour

exclusively to the royal goodness, which in its extreme condescension requites those of its subjects who have

served the state valiantly. Thus you see, pursued the captain, that if I had a hundred lives they are all pledged,

A brave man in distress is the most touching object in this world. I exhorted him to stick close, and offered to

write his memorials out fair for nothing. I even went so far as to open my purse to him, and to beg it as a

favour that he would draw upon me for whatever he wanted. But he was not one of those folks who never

wait to be asked twice on such occasions. So much the reverse, that with a commendable delicacy on the

subject, he thanked me for my kindness, but refused it peremptorily. He afterwards told me that, for fear of

spunging upon any one, he had accustomed himself, by little and little, to live with such sobriety, that the

smallest quantity of food was sufficient for his subsistence; which was but too true. His daily fare was

confined to vegetables, by dint whereof his component parts were confined to skin and bone. That he might

have no witnesses how ill he dined, he usually shut himself up in his chamber at that meal. I prevailed so far

with him, however, by repeated entreaties, as to obtain that we should dine and sup together: then,

undermining his pride by little indirect artifices of compassion, I ordered more provision and wine than I

could consume to my own share. I pressed him to eat and drink. At first he made difficulties about it; but in

the end there was no resisting my hospitality. After a time, his modesty becoming fainter as his diet was more

flush, he helped me off with my dinner and lightened my bottle almost without asking.

One day, after four or five glasses, when his stomach had renewed its intimacy with a more generous system

of feeding, he said to me with an air of gaiety: Upon my word, Signor Gil Blas, you have very winning ways

with you; you make me do just whatever you please. There is something so hearty in your welcome as to

relieve me from all fear of trespassing on your generous temper. My captain seemed at that moment so

entirely to have got rid of his bashfulness, that if I had been in the humour to have seized the lucky moment,

and to have pressed my purse once more on his acceptance, I am much mistaken if he would have refused it. I

did not put him to the trial; but rested satisfied with having made him my messmate, and taken the trouble not

only to copy out his memorials, but to assist him in their composition. By dint of having written homilies out

fair, I had learnt the knack of phraseology, and was become a sort of author. The old officer on his side had

some little vanity about writing well. Both of us thus contending for the prize, the bursts of eloquence would

have done honour to the most celebrated professors of Salamanca. But it was in vain that we sat on opposite

sides of the table, and drained our genius to the very dregs, to nourish the flowers of rhetoric in these

memorials; you might as well have planted an orangegrove on the seabeach. In whatever new light we

placed Don Annibal's services, it was all the same at court, the connoisseurs were decided about their merit;

so that the battered veteran had no reason to sing the praises of that spirit which leads officers on to spend

their family estates in the service. In the virulence of his spleen he cursed the planet under which he was

CH. XII. Gil Blas takes lodgings in a readyfurnished house. He gets acquainted with Captain Chinchilla. That officer's character and business at Madrid. 225

That his mortification might be pressed down and running over, it happened to his face one day that a poet,

introduced by the Duke of Alva, having recited a sonnet before the king on the birth of an infant; was

gratified with a pension of five hundred ducats. I believe the loplimbed captain would have gone raving mad

at it, if I had not taken some pains to recompense his spirit. What is the matter with you? said I, seeing him

quite beside himself. There is nothing in all this which ought to go so terribly agaiust the grain. Ever since

Mount Parnassus swelled above the subject plain, have not poets pleaded the privilege of laying princes under

contribution to their muse? There is not a crowned head in Christendom that has not substituted a pensioned

laureate for the household fool of less refined times. And between ourselves, this species of patronage, for the

most part galloping down full drive to posterity on the saddle of Pegasus, raises a hue and cry in honour of

royal munificence; but bounty to persons who are lost in a crowd, however deserving, adds nothing to the

bulk or stature of posthumous renown. Augustus must have drained his treasury by gratuities, and yet how

few of the names on his pensionlist have come down to us! But distant ages shall be informed, as we are, in

all the hyperbole of poetic diction, that his benefits descended on Virgil like the rain from heaven, whose

drops arithmetic has no combinations to count, no principles by which to reason on their number.

But let me talk ever so classically to Don Annibal, there was a confounded acidity in that sonnet which

curdled all the milky ingredients of his moral composition; it was impossible to chew, swallow, and digest

such food with human organs; and he was fully determined to give the matter up at once. It seemed right,

nevertheless, by way of playing for his last stake, to present one more memorial to the Duke of Lerma, and if

that failed there was an end of the game. For this purpose we went together to the prime minister's. There we

met a young man who, after saluting the captain, said to him in a tone of affection: My old and dear master, is

it your own self that I see? What business brings you to this mart of favour? If you have occasion for any one

to speak a good word for you, do not spare my lungs; they are entirely at your service. How is this, Pedrillo?

answered the officer; to hear you talk it should seem as if you held some important post in this house. At

least, replied the young man, I have influence enough here to put an honest rustic like you into the right train.

That being the case, resumed the captain with a smile, I place myself under your protection. I accept the

pledge, rejoined Pedrillo. You have only to acquaint me with your particular taste, and I engage to give you a

We had no sooner opened our minds to this young fellow, so full of kind assurances, than he inquired where

Don Annibal resided; then, promising that we should hear from him on the following day, he vanished

without informing us what he meant to do, or even telling us whether he belonged to the Duke of Lerma's

household. I was curious to know what this Pedrillo was, whose turn of mind appeared to be so brisk and

active. He is a brave lad, said the captain, who waited on me some years ago, but finding me out at elbows,

went away in search of a better service. There was no offence to me in all that; it is very natural to change

when one cannot be worse off. The creature is pleasant enough, not deficient in parts, and happy in a spirit of

intrigue which would wheedle with the devil. But notwithstanding all his fine pretence, I am not sanguine in

my reckoning on the zeal he has just testified for me. Perhaps, said I, there may be some plausibility in his

designs. Should he be a retainer, for example, to any of the duke's principal officers, it will be in his power to

serve you. You have lived too long in the world not to know that in great houses everything is done by party

and cabal; that the masters are governed by two or three upper servants about their persons, who, in their turn,

On the next morning we saw Pedrillo at our breakfast table. Gentlemen, said he, if I did not explain myself

yesterday as to my means of serving Captain Chinchilla, it was because we were not in a place where such a

communication could be made with safety. Besides, I was disposed to ascertain whether the thing was

feasible, before you were made parties in it. Understand, then, that I am the confidential servant of Signor

Don Rodrigo de Calderona, the Duke of Lerma's first secretary. My master, who is much addicted to women,

goes almost every evening to sup with a little Arragonian nightingale, whom he keeps in a cage near the

purlieus of the court. She is quite a young girl from Albarazin, a most lovely creature. She has some wit as

well as beauty, and sings enchantingly; they call her the Spanish Syren. I am the bearer of some tender

CH. XII. Gil Blas takes lodgings in a readyfurnished house. He gets acquainted with Captain Chinchilla. That officer's character and business at Madrid. 226

inquiries every morning, and am just come from her. I have proposed to her to pass off Signor Don Annibal

for her uncle, and the object of the forgery is to engage her lover in his interests. She is very willing to lend

her aid in the business. Besides some little commission to which she looks forward on the profits, it will

Signor de Chinchilla looked very grim at this suggestion. He declared his extreme abhorrence of becoming a

party concerned in a mere swindling trick, and still more of adopting a female adventurer, no better than she

should be, into his family, and thus casting a stain upon its immaculate purity. It was not only for himself that

he felt all this soreness; there was a recoil of ignominy on his ancestors, which would lay their honours level

with the dust. This morbid delicacy seemed out of season to Pedrillo, who could not help expressing his

contempt of it thus. You must surely be out of your wits to take the matter up on that footing. A fine market

you bring your morals to, you dictators from the plough, with your ridiculous squeamishness! Now you seem

a good sensible man, appealing to me as he spoke these last words. Can you believe your ears when you hear

such scruples advanced? Heaven defend us! At court, of all the places in the world, to look at morals through

a microscope! Let fortune come under what haggard form she may, they hug her in their arms, and swear she

My way of thinking was precisely with Pedrillo; and we dinned it so stoutly into both the captain's ear; as to

make him the Spanish Syren's uncle against nature and inclination. When we had so far prevailed over his

pride, we all three set about drawing up a new memorial for the minister, which was revised, with a copious

interlacing of additions and corrections. I then wrote it out fair, and Pedrillo carried it to the Arragonian

chauntress, who that very evening put it into the hands of Signor Don Rodrigo, telling her story so artlessly

that the secretary, really supposing her the captain s niece, promised to take up his case. A few days

afterwards we reaped the fruits of our little project. Pedrillo came back to our house with the lofty air of a

benefactor. Good news, said he to Chinchilla. The king is going to make a new grant of officers, places, and

pensions; nor will your name be forgotten in the list. But I am specially commissioned to inquire what

present you purpose making to the Spanish Syren, for the piper must be paid. As to myself, I vow and protest

that I will not take a farthing; the pleasure of having contributed to patch up my old master's broken fortunes,

is more to me than all the ingots of the Indies. But it is not precisely so with our nymph of Albarazin. she has

a little Jewish blood to plead, when the Christian precept of loving your neighbour as herself is preached up

to her. She would pick her own natural father's pocket; so judge you whether she would be above making a

She has only to name her own terms, answered Don Annibal. Whatever my pension may be, she shall have

the third of it annually if she pleases; I will pledge my word for it; and that proportion ought to satisfy her

craving, if his Catholic Majesty had settled his whole exchequer on me. I would as soon take your word as

your bond, for my own part, replied the nimblefooted messenger of Don Rodrigo; I know that it will stand

the assay; but you have to deal with a little creature who knows herself, and naturally supposes that she

knows all the rest of the world by the same token. Besides, she would like better to take it in the lump;

twothirds to be paid down now in ready money. Why, how the devil does she mean that I should get the

wherewithal? bawled the captain in a quandary. Does she take me for an auditor of public accounts, or

treasurer to a charity? You cannot have made her acquainted with my circumstances. Yes, but I have, replied

Pedrillo; she knows very well that you are poorer than Job; after what she has heard from me she could think

no otherwise. But do not make yourself uneasy, my brain is never at a loss for an expedient. I know an old

scoundrel of an usurer, who will take ten per cent, if he can get no more. You must assign your first year's

pension to him, in acknowledgment for a like valuable consideration from him, which you will in point of

fact receive, only deducting the abovementioned interest. As to security, the lender will take your castle at

The captain declared his readiness to accept the terms, in case of his being so fortunate as to possess any

beneficial interest in the good things to be given away the next morning. It happened accordingly. He got a

CH. XII. Gil Blas takes lodgings in a readyfurnished house. He gets acquainted with Captain Chinchilla. That officer's character and business at Madrid. 227

government with a pension of three hundred pistoles. As soon as the news came, he signed and sealed as

required, settled his little concerns in town, and went off again for New Castile with a balance of some few

I HAD contracted a habit of going to the royal palace every morning, where I lounged away two or three

good hours in seeing the good people pass to and fro; but their aspect was less imposing there than in other

places, as the lesser stars turn pale in the presence of the sun. One day as I was walking back and fore, and

strutting about the apartments, making about as wise a figure there as my neighbours, I spied out Fabricio,

whom I had left at Valladolid in the service of a hospital director. It surprised me not a little that he was

chatting familiarly with the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Marquis of Santa Cruz, Those two noblemen, if

my senses did not deceive me, were listening with admiration to his prattle. To crown the whole, he was as

Surely I must be mistaken! thought I. Can this possibly be the son of Nunez the barber? More likely it is

some young courtier who bears a strong resemblance to him. But my suspense was of no long duration. The

party broke up, and I accosted Fabricio. He knew me at once; took me by the hand, and after pressing through

the crowd to get out of the precincts, said with a hearty greeting, My dear Gil Blas, I am delighted to see you

again. What are you doing at Madrid? Are you still at service? Some place about the court perhaps? How do

matters stand with you? Let me into the history of all that has happened to you since your precipitate flight

from Valladolid. You ask a great many questions in a breath, replied I; and we are not in a fit place for

storytelling. You are in the right, answered he; we shall be better at home Come, I will shew you the way; it

is not far hence I am quite my own master, with all my comforts about me; perfectly easy as to the main

chance, with a light heart and a happy temper; because I am determined to see everything on the bright side.

I accepted the proposal, and Fabricio escorted me. We stopped at a house of magnificent appearance, where

he told me that he lived. There was a court to cross; on one side it had a grand staircase leading to a suite of

state apartments, and on the other a small flight, dark and narrow, whither we betook ourselves to a residence

elevated in a different sense from what he had boasted. It consisted of a single room, which my contriving

friend had divided into four by deal partitions. The first served as an antechamber to the second, where he

lay: of the third he made his closet, of the last his kitchen, The chamber and antechamber were papered with

maps, and many a sheet of philosophical discussion; nor was the furniture by any means unsuitable to the

hangings. There was a large brocade bed much the worse for wear; tawdry old chairs with coarse yellow

coverings, fringed with Grenada silk of the same colour, a table with gilt feet, and a cloth over it that once

aspired to be red, bordered with tinsel and embroidery tarnished by that old corroder, time; with an ebony

cabinet, ornamented with figures in a clumsy taste of sculpture. Instead of a convenient desk, he had a small

table in his closet; and his library was made up with some few books, and a great many bundles of paper

arranged on shelves one above the other the whole length of the wall. His kitchen, too modest to put the rest

of the establishment out of countenance, exhibited a frugal assortment of earthenware and other necessary

Fabricio, when he had allowed me leisure to philosophize on his domestic arrangements, begged to know my

opinion of his apartments and his housekeeping, and whether I was not enchanted with them: Yes, beyond all

manner of doubt, answered I with a roguish smile. You must have applied your wits to a good purpose at

Madrid, to have got so well accoutred. Of course you have some post. Heaven preserve me from anything of

the sort! replied he. My line of life is far above all political situations. A man of rank, to whom this house

belongs, has given me a room in it, whence I have contrived to piece out a suite of four, fitted up in such taste

CH. XIII. Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both sides. They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be anticipated. 228

as you may see. I devote my time to no employments but what are just to my fancy, and never feel what it is

to want. Explain yourself more intelligibly, said I, interrupting him. You set me all agog to be let into your

little arrangements. Well, then! said he, I will rid you of that devil curiosity at once. I have commenced

author, have plunged head long into the ocean of literature; verse and prose run equally glib; in short I am a

What! you bound in solemn league and covenant to Apollo? exclaimed I with most intolerable laughter.

Nothing under a prophet could ever have anticipated this. I should have been less surprised at any other

transformation. What possible delights have you had the ingenuity to detect in the rugged landscape of

Parnassus? It should seem as if the labourers there have a very poor taking in civil life, and feed on a coarse

diet without sauce. Out upon you! cried he, in dudgeon at the hint. You are talking of those paltry authors,

whose works and even their persons are under the thumb of booksellers and players. Is it any wonder that

writers under such circumstances should be held cheap? But the good ones, my friend, are on a better footing

in the world; and I think it may he affirmed, vanity apart, that my name is to be found in their list.

Questionless, said I, talents like yours are convertible to every purpose; compositions from such a pen are not

likely to be insipid. But I am on the rack to know how this rage for fencing with inky weapons could have

Your wonder and alarm has mind in it, replied Nunez. I was so well pleased with my situation in the service

of Signor Manuel Ordonnez, that I had no hankering after any other. But my genius, like that of Plautus,

being too high. minded to contract itself within the sphere of menial occupations, I wrote a play and got it

acted by a company then performing at Valladolid. Though it was not worth the paper it was scrawled upon,

it had more success than many better pieces. Hence concluded I that the public was a silly bird, and would

hatch any eggs that were put under it. That modest discovery, with the consequent madness of incessant

composition, alienated my affections from the hospital. The love of poetry being stronger than the desire of

accumulation, I determined on repairing to Madrid, as the centre of everything distinguished, to form my

taste in that school. The first thing was to give the governor warning, who parted with me to his own great

sorrow, from a sort of affection the result of similar propensities. Fabricio, said he, what possible ground can

you have for discontent? None at all, sir, I replied; you are the best of all possible masters, and I am deeply

impressed with your kind treatment; but you know one must follow whithersoever the stars ordain. I feel the

sacred fire within me, on whose aspiring element my name is to be wafted to posterity. What confounded

nonsense! rejoined the old fellow, whose ideas were all pecuniary. You are already become a fixture in the

hospital, and are made of a metal which may easily be manufactured into a steward, or by goodluck even

into a governor. You are going to give up the great object of life, and to flutter about its frippery. So much the

The governor, seeing how fruitless it was to struggle with my fixed resolve, paid me my wages, and made me

a present of fifty ducats as an acknowledgment of my services. Thus, between this supply and what I have

been able to scrape together out of some little commissions, which were assigned to me from an opinion of

my disinterestedness, I was in circumstances to make a very pretty appearance on my arrival at Madrid;

which I was not negligent in doing, though the literary tribe in our country are not overpunctilious about

decency or cleanliness. I soon got acquainted with Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and the whole set of them; but

though they were fine fellows, and thought so by the public, I chose for my model in preference, Don Lewis

de Gongora, the incomparable, a young bachelor of Cordova, decidedly the first genius that ever Spain

produced. He will not suffer his works to be printed during his lifetime; but confines himself to a private

communication among his friends. What is very remarkable, nature has gifted him with the uncommon talent

of succeeding in every department of poetry. His principal excellence is in satire; there he outshines himself.

He does not resemble, like Lucilius, a muddy stream with a slimy bottom; but is rather like the Tagus, rolling

CH. XIII. Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both sides. They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be anticipated. 229

You give a fine description of this bachelor, said I to Fabricio; and questionless a character of such merit

must have attracted an infinite deal of envy. The whole gang of authors, answered he, good and bad equally,

are open mouthed against him. He deals in bombast, says one; aims at double meanings, luxuriates in

metaphor and affects transposition. His verses, says another, have all the obscurity of those which the Salian

priests used to chaunt in their processions, and which nobody was the wiser for hearing. There are others who

impute it to him as a fault, to have exercised his genius at one time in sonnets or ballads, at another in

playwriting, in heroic stanzas, and in minor efforts of wit alternately, as if he had madly taken upon himself

to eclipse the best writers each in their own favourite walk. But all these thrusts of jealousy are successfully

parried, where the muse, which is their mark, becomes the idol of the great and of the multitude at once.

Under so able a master did I serve my apprenticeship; and, vanity apart, the preceptor was reflected in the

disciple. So happily did I catch his spirit, that by this time he would not be ashamed to own some of my

detached pieces. After his example, I carry my goods to market at great houses where the bidding is eager,

and the sagacity of the bidders not difficult to match. It is true that I have a very insinuating talent at

recitation; which places my compositions in no disadvantageous light. In short, I am the dear delight of the

nobility, and live in the most particular intimacy with the Duke of Medina Sidonia, just as Horace used to live

with his jolly companion Maecenas. By such conjuration and mighty magic have I won the name of author.

You see the method lies within a narrow compass. Now, Gil Blas, it is your turn to deliver a round

On this hint I spake; and unlike most narrators, gave all the important particulars, passing lightly over minute

and tiresome circumstances. The action of talking, long continued, puts one in mind of dining. His ebony

cabinet, which served for larder, pantry, and all possible uses, was ransacked for napkins, bread, a shoulder of

mutton far gone in a decline, with its last and best contents, a bottle of excellent wine; so that we sat down to

table in high spirits, as friends are wont to do after a long separation. You observe, said he, this free and

independent manner of life. I might find a plate laid for me every day, if I chose it, in the very first houses;

but, besides that the muse often pays me a visit and detains me within doors, I have a little of Aristippus in

my nature. I can pass with equal relish from the great and busy world to my re treat, from all the researches of

The wine was so good, that we encroached upon a second bottle. As a relish to our fruit and cheese, I begged

to be favoured with the sight of something, the offspring of his inspired moments. He immediately rummaged

among his papers, and read me a sonnet with much energy of tone. Yet, with all the advantage of accent and

expression, there was something so uncouth in the arrangement, as to baffle all conjecture about the meaning.

He saw how it puzzled me. This sonnet then, said he, is not quite level to your comprehension! Is not that the

fact! I owned that I should have preferred a construction somewhat less forced. He began laughing at my

rusticity. Well, then! replied he; we will say that this sonnet would confuse clearer heads than thine: it is all

the better for that Sonnets, odes, in short all compositions which partake of the sublime, are of course the

reverse of the simple and natural: they are enveloped in clouds, and their darkness constitutes their grandeur.

Let the poet only fancy that be understands himself no matter whether his readers understand him or not. You

are laughing at me, my friend, said I, interrupting him. Let poetry be of what species it may, good sense and

intelligible diction are essential to its powers of pleasing. If your peerless Gongora is not a little more lucid

than yourself, I protest that his merit will never pass current with me. Such poets may entrap their own age

into applause, but will never live beyond it. Now let me have a taste of your prose.

Nunez shewed me a preface which he meant to prefix to a dramatic miscellany then in the press. He insisted

on having my opinion. I like not your prose one atom better than your verse, said I. Your sonnet is a roaring

deluge of emptiness; and as for your preface, it is disfigured by a phraseology stolen from languages yet in

embryo, by words not stamped in the mint of general use, by all the perplexity of a style that does not know

what to make of itself. In a word, the composition is altogether a thing of your own. Our classical and

standard books are written in a very different manner. Poor tasteless wretch! exclaimed Fabricio. You are not

CH. XIII. Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both sides. They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be anticipated. 230

aware that every prose writer who aspires to the reputation of sentiment and delicacy in these days, affects

this style of his own, these perplexities and innovations which are a stumblingblock to you. There are five or

six of us determined reformers of our language, who have undertaken to turn the Spanish idiom topsyturvy;

and with a blessing on our endeavours, we will pull it down and build it up again in defiance of Lope de

Vega, Cervantes, and all the host of wits who cavil at our new modes of speech. Our party is strongly

supported in the fashionable world, and we have laid violent hands upon the pulpit.

After all, continued he, our project is commendable; for, to speak without prejudice, we have ten times the

merit of those natural writers, who express themselves just like the mob. I cannot conceive why so many

sensible men are taken with them. It is all very well at Athens and at Rome, in a wild and undistinguishing

democracy; and on that principle only could Socrates tell Alcibiades, that the last appeal was to the people in

all disputes about language. But at Madrid there is a polite and a vulgar usage; so that our courtiers talk in a

different tongue from their tradesmen. You may assure yourself that it is so; in fine, this newly invented style

is carrying everything before it, and turning old nature out of doors. Now I will explain to you by a single

instance the difference between the elegance of our diction and the flatness of theirs. They would say, for

example, in plain terms, "Ballets incidental to the piece are an ornament to a play;" but in our mode of

expression, we say more exquisitely, "Ballets incidental to the piece are the very life and soul of the play."

Now observe the phrase; life and soul. Are you sensible how glowing it is, at the same time how descriptive,

I broke in upon my reformer of language with a burst of laughter. Get along with you, Fabricio, said I, you

are a coxcomb of your own manufacture, with your affected finery of phrase. And you, answered he, are a

blockhead of nature's clumsy moulding, with your starch simplicity. He then went on taunting me with the

archbishop of Grenada's angry banter on my dismission. "Get about your business! Go and tell my treasurer

to pay you a hundred ducats, and take my blessing in addition to that sum. God speed you, good master Gil

Blas! I heartily pray that you may do well in the world! There is no thing to stand in your way, but a little

better taste." I roared out in a still louder explosion of laughter at this lucky hit; and Fabricio, easily appeased

on the score of impiety, as manifested in the opinion expressed concerning his writings, lost nothing of his

pleasant and propitious temper. We got to the bottom of our second bottle; and then rose from the table in

fine order for an adventure. Our first intention was to see what was to be seen upon the Prado; but passing in

The company was in general tolerably select at this house of call. There were two distinct apartments; and the

pastime in each was of a very opposite nature. One was devoted to games of chance or skill; the other to

literary and scientific discussion: and there were at that moment two clever men by profession handling an

argument most pertinaciously, before ten or twelve auditors deeply interested in the discussion. There was no

occasion to join the circle, because the metaphysical thunder of their logic made itself heard at a more

respectful distance: the heat and passion with which this abstract controversy was managed made the two

philosophers look little better than madmen. A certain Eleazar used to cast out devils, by tying a ring to the

nose of the possessed; had these learned swine been ringed in the same manner, how many little imps would

have taken wing out of their nostrils? Angels and ministers of grace defend us, said I to my companion: what

contortions of gesture, what extravagance of elocution! One might as well argue with the town crier. How

little do we know our natural calling in society! Very true indeed, answered he: you have read of Novius, the

Roman pawnbroker, whose lungs went as far beyond the rattle of chariot wheels, as his conscience beyond

the rate of legal interest; the Novii must certainly have been transplanted into Spain, and these fellows are

lineal descendants. But the hopeless part of the case is, that though our organs of sense are deafened, our

understandings are not invigorated at their expense. We thought it best to make our escape from these braying

metaphysicians, and by that prudent motion to avoid a headache which was just beginning to annoy us. We

went and seated ourselves in a corner of the other room, whence, as we sipped our refreshing beverage, all

comers and goers were obnoxious to our criticism. Nunez was acquainted with almost the whole set. Heaven

and earth! exclaimed he, the clash of philosophy is as yet but in its beginning; fresh reinforcements are

CH. XIII. Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both sides. They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be anticipated. 231

coming in on both sides. Those three men just on the threshold, mean to let slip the dogs of war. But do you

see those two queer fellows going out? That little swarthy, leathercomplexioned Adonis, with long lank hair

parted in the middle with mathematical exactness, is Don Juliano de Villanuno. He is a young barrister, with

more of the prig than the lawyer about him. A party of us went to dine with him the other day. The

occupation we caught him in was singular enough. He was amusing himself in his office with making a tall

greyhound fetch and carry the briefs in the causes which were so unfortunate as to have him retained; and of

course the canine amicus curiae set his fangs indifferently into the flesh of plaintiff or defendant, tearing law,

equity, precedent, and principle into shreds. That licentiate at his elbow, with jolly, pimplespangled nose

and cheeks, goes by the name of Don Cherubino Tonto. He is a canon of Toledo, and the greatest fool that

was ever suffered to walk the earth without a keeper. And yet, he arrays his features in that sort of not quite

unmeaning smile, that you would give him credit for good sense as well as good humour. His eye has the

look of cunning if not of wisdom, and his laugh too much of sarcasm for an absolute idiot. One would

conclude that he had a turn for mischief, but kept it down from principle and feeling. If you wish to take his

opinion upon a work of genius, he will hear it read with so grave and wrapt a silence, as nothing but deep

thought and acute mental criticism could justify; but the truth is, that he comprehends not one word, and

therefore can have nothing to say. He was of the barrister party. There were a thousand good things said, as

there always must be in a professional company. Don Cherubino added nothing to the mass of merriment; but

looked such perfect approbation at those who did, was so tractable and complimentary a listener, that every

Do you know, said I to Nunez, who those two fellows are with dirty clothes and matted hair, their elbows on

that table in the corner, and their cheeks upon their hands, whiffing foul breath into each other's nostrils as

they lay their heads together? He told me that by their faces they were strangers to him; but that by physical

and moral tokens they could only be coffeehouse politicians, venting their spleen against the measures of

government. But do look at that spruce spark, whistling as he paces up and down the other room, and

balancing himself alternately on one toe and on the other. That is Don Augustino Moreto, a young poet

sufficiently of nature's mint and coinage to pass current, if flatterers and sciolists had not debased him into a

mere coxcomb by their misplaced admiration. The man to whom he is going up with that familiar shake by

the hand, is one of the set who write verses and then call themselves poets; who claim a speaking

Authors upon authors, nothing but authors! exclaimed he, pointing out two dashing blades. One would think

they had made an appointment on purpose to pass in review before you. Don Bernardo Deslenguado and Don

Sebastian of Villa Viciosa! The first is a vinegarflavoured vintage of Parnassus, a satirist by trade and

company; he hates all the world, and is not liked the better for his taste. As for Don Sebastian, he is the milk

and honey of criticism; he would not have the guilt of illnature on his conscience for the universe. He has

just brought out a comedy without a single idea, which has succeeded with an audience of tantamount ideas;

Gongora's candid pupil was running on in his career of benevolent explanation, when one of the Duke de

Medina Sidonia's household came up and said: Signor Don Fabricio, my lord duke wishes to speak with you.

You will find him at home. Nunez, who knew that the wishes of a great lord could not be too soon gratified,

left me without ceremony; but he left me in the utmost consternation, to hear him called Don, and thus

ennobled, in spite of master Chrysostom the barber's escutcheon, who had the honour to call him father.

I WAS too happy in Fabricio's society, not to bunt him out again early the next morning. Good day to you,

Signor Don Fabricio, said I on my first approach; it seems you are the picked and chosen flower, or rather,

CH. XIV. Fabricio finds a situation for Gil Blas in the establishment of Count Galiano, a Sicilian nobleman. 232

saving your presence, the nondescript excrescence of the Asturian nobility. This sarcasm had no other effect

than to set him laughing heartily. Then the title of Don was not lost upon you! exclaimed he. No, indeed, my

noble lord, answered I; and you will give me leave to tell you that when you were recounting your

transformations to me yesterday, you forgot the most extraordinary. Exactly so, replied he; but to speak

sincerely, if I have taken up that prefix of dignity, it is less to tickle my own vanity, than in tenderness to that

of others. You know what stuff the Spaniards are made of; an honest man is no honest man to them, if his

honour is not bolstered up with escutcheons, pedigree, and patrimony. I may tell you, moreover, that there are

so many gentry, and very queer soft of gentry too, dubbed Don Francisco, Don Pedro, Don

Whatdoyoucallhim, or Don Devil, that if they owe their coats of arms to any herald but their own

impudence, modern nobility is a mere drug in the market, so that a plebeian of nature's ennobling confers

infinite honour on the upstarts of nn artificial creation, by herding with their order.

But let us change the subject, added he. Last night, supping at the Duke de Medina Sidonia's, with among

other company we had Count Galiano, a great Sicilian nobleman, the conversation turned upon the ridiculous

effects of selflove. Delighted at having a case in point by way of illustration, I treated them with the story of

the homilies. You may well suppose that there was a hearty laugh, and that the archbishop's dignity was not

saved in the concussion; but the effect was not amiss for you, since the company felt for your situation; and

Count Galiano, after a long string of questions, which of course I answered to your advantage, commissioned

me to introduce you. I was just now going to look after you for that purpose. In all probability he means to

offer you a situation as one of his secretaries. I advise you not to hang back. The count is rich, and lives away

at Madrid, on the scale of an ambassador. He is said to have come to court on a negotiation with the Duke of

Lerma, respecting some crown lands which that minister thinks of alienating in Sicily. In one word, Count

Galiano, though a Sicilian, has every feature of generosity, fair dealing, and gentlemanly conduct. You

cannot do better than get upon that noble man's establishment. In all probability, the flattering prophecy

It was my full determination, said I to Nunez, to take my swing about town and look at men and manners a

little, before the harness was buckled on my back again; but you paint your Sicilian nobleman in colours

which fascinate my imagination and change my purpose. I should like to close with him at once. You will do

so very soon, replied he, or I am much deceived. We sallied forth together immediately, and went to the

count's, who resided in the house of his friend, Don Sancho d'Avila, the latter being then in the country.

The courtyard was overrun with pages and footmen in rich and elegant liveries, while the antechamber was

blockaded by esquires, gentlemen, and various officers of the household. They were all as fine as possible,

but with so whimsical an assortment of features, that you might have taken them for a cluster of monkeys

dressed up to satirize the Spanish fashions. Do what you will, there is a certain class of men and women in

At the very name of Don Fabricio, a lane was formed for my patron, and I followed in the rear. The count

was in his dressinggown, sitting on a sofa and taking his chocolate. We made our obeisance in the most

respectful manner; while an inclination of the head on his part, accompanied with a condescending smile,

won my heart at once. It is very wonderful, and yet very common, how the most trifling notice from the great

penetrates the very soul of those who are not accustomed to it! They must have behaved like fiends, before

After taking his chocolate, he recreated himself with the humours of a large ape, which underwent the name

of Cupid: why the ape was made a god, or the god likened to an ape, the parties concerned can best answer;

the only point of resemblance seemed to be mischief. At all events, this hairy brat of the sylvan Venus had so

gambolled himself into his master's good graces, had established such a character for wit and humour, that

the life of society was extinguished in his absence. As for Nunez and myself, though we had a better turn for

drollery, we were cunning enough to chime in with the prevailing taste. The Sicilian was highly delighted

CH. XIV. Fabricio finds a situation for Gil Blas in the establishment of Count Galiano, a Sicilian nobleman. 233

with this, and tore himself away for a moment from his favourite pastime, just to tell me: My friend, you have

only to say whether you choose to be one of my secretaries. If the situation suits you, the salary is two

hundred pistoles a year. If Don Fabricio gives you a character, that is enough. Yes, my lord, cried Nunez, I

am not such a cowardly fellow as Plato, who introduced one of his friends to Dionysius the tyrant, and then

was afraid to back his own recommendation. But I have no anxiety about being reproached on that head.

I thanked the poet of the Asturias with a low bow, for having so much better an opinion of me than Plato had

of his friend. Then addressing my patron, I assured him of my zeal and fidelity. No sooner did this good

nobleman perceive his proposal to be acceptable, then he rang for his steward, and after talking to him apart,

said to me: Gil Blas, I will explain the nature of your post hereafter. Meanwhile, you have only to follow that

righthand man of mine; he has his orders how to bestow you. I immediately retreated, leaving Fabricio

The steward, who came from Messina, and proved by all his actions that he came thence, led the way to his

own room, overwhelming me all the while with the kindness of his reception. He sent the tailor who lived

upon the skirts of the household, and ordered him to make me out of hand a suit of equal magnificence with

those of the principal officers. The tailor took my measure and withdrew. As to lodging, said the native of

Messina, I know a room which will just suit you. But stay! Have you breakfasted? I answered in the negative.

Oh! poor shamefaced youth, replied he, why did not you say so? Come this way: I will introduce you where,

So saying, he led me down into the buttery, where we found the clerk of the kitchen, who was a Neapolitan,

and of course a complete match for his neighbour on the other side of the water. It might be said of this pair

that they were formed to meet by nature. This honest clerk of the kitchen was doing justice to his trade by

cramming himself and five or six hangerson with ham, tongue, sausages, and other savoury compositions,

which, besides their own relish, possess the merit of engendering thirst: we made common cause with these

jolly fellows, and helped them to toss off some of my lord the count's best wines. While these things were

going on in the buttery, kindred exploits were performing in the kitchen. The cook too was regaling three or

four tradesmen of his acquaintance, who liked good wine as well as ourselves, nor disdained to stuff their

craws with meat pasties and game: the very scullions were at free quarters, and filched whatever they pleased.

I fancied myself in a house given up to plunder; and yet what I saw was comparatively fair and honest. These

little festivities were laughing matters; but the private transactions of the family were very serious.

I WENT away to fetch my moveables to my new residence. On my return the count was at table with several

noblemen and the poet Nunez, who called about him as if perfectly at home, and took a principal share in the

conversation. Indeed, he never opened his lips without applause. So much for wit! with that commodity at

It was my lot to dine with the gentlemen of the household, who were served nearly as well as their employer.

After mealtime I withdrew to ruminate on my lot. So far so good, Gil Blas! said I to myself: here you are in

the family of a Sicilian count, of whose character you know nothing. To judge by appearances, you will be as

much in your element as a duck upon the water. But do not make too sure! you ought to look askew at your

horoscope, whose unkindly position you have too often experienced with a vengeance. Independent of that, it

is not easy to conjecture what he means you to do. There are secretaries and a steward already: where can

your post be? In all likelihood you are intended to manage his little private affairs. Well and good! There is

no better luck about the house of a great nobleman, if you would travel post haste to make your fortune. In

the performance of more honourable services, a man gets on only step by step, and even at that pace often

While these philosophical reflections were revolving in my mind, a servant came to tell me that all the

company was gone home, and that my lord the count was inquiring for me. I flew immediately to his

apartment, where I found him lolling on the sofa, ready to take his afternoon's nap, with his monkey by his

Come nearer, Gil Blas, said he; take a chair, and hear me attentively. I placed myself in an attitude of

profound listening, when he addressed me as follows. Don Fabricio has informed me that, among other good

qualities, you have that of sincere attachment to your masters, and incorruptible integrity. These are my

inducements for proposing to take you into my service. I stand in need of a friend in a domestic, to espouse

my interests and apply his whole heart and soul to the reform of my establishment. My fortune is large, it

must be confessed, but my expenditure far exceeds my income every year. And how happens that? Because

they rob, ransack, and devour me. I might as well be in a forest infested by banditti, as an inhabitant of my

own house. I suspect the clerk of the kitchen and my steward of playing into one another's hands; and unless

my thoughts are unjust as well as uncharitable, they are pushing forward as fast as they can to ruin me beyond

redemption. You will ask me what I have to do but send them packing, if I think them scoundrels. But then

where are others to be got of a better breed? It will be sufficient to place them under the eye of a man who

shall be invested with the right of control over their conduct; and you have I chosen to execute this

commission. If you discharge it well, be assured that your services will not be repaid with ingratitude. I shall

With this he dismissed me; and that very evening, in the presence of the whole household, I was proclaimed

principal manager and surveyorgeneral of the family. Our gentlemen of Messina and Naples expressed no

particular chagrin at first, because they considered me as a spark of mettle like their own, and took it for

granted, that though the loaf was to be shared with a third, there would always be cut and come again for the

triumvirate. But they looked inexpressibly foolish the next day, when I declared myself in serious terms a

decided enemy to all peculation and underhand dealing. From the clerk of the kitchen I required the buttery

accounts without varnish or concealment. I went down into the cellar. The furniture of the butler's pantry

underwent a strict examination, particularly in the articles of plate and linen. Next I read them a serious

lecture on the duty of acting for their employer as they would for themselves; exhorted them to adopt a

system of economy in their expenditure; and wound up my harangue with a protestation, that his lordship

should be acquainted with the very first instance of any unfair tricks that I should discover in the exercise of

But I had not yet got to the length of my tether. There was still wanting a scout to ascertain whether they had

any private understanding. I fixed upon a scullion, who, won over by my promises, told me that I could not

have applied to a better person to be informed of all that was passing in the family; that the clerk of the

kitchen and the steward were one as good as the other, and agreed to burn the candle at both ends; that half

the provisions bought for the table were made perquisites by these gentlemen; that the Neapolitan kept a lady

who lives opposite St. Thomas's college, and his colleague, not to be outdone, provided another next door to

the Sungate; that these two nymphs had their larder regularly supplied every morning, while the cook,

following a good example, sent a few little nice things to a widow of his acquaintance in the neighbourhood:

but as he winked at the table arrangements of his dear and confidential friends, it was but fair that he should

draw whenever he pleased upon the winecellar: in short, by the practices of these three bloodsuckers, a most

horrible system of extravagance had found its way into my lord the count's establishment. If you doubt my

veracity, added the scullion, only take the trouble of going to morrow morning about seven o'clock into the

neighbourhood of St Thomas's college, and you will see me with a load upon my back, which will convert

your suspicions into certainty. Then you, said I, are in the confidence of these honest purveyors! I am factor

to the clerk of the kitchen, answered he; and one of my comrades runs on errands for the steward.

I had the curiosity the next day to loiter about St. Thomas's college at the appointed hour. My informer was

punctual to time and place. He brought with him a large tray full of butcher's meat, poultry, and game. I took

an account of every article; and drew out the bill of fare in my memorandum book, for the purpose of

shewing it to my master: at the same time telling my little turnspit to execute his commission as usual.

His Sicilian lordship, naturally warm in his temper, would have turned his countryman and the Italian out of

doors together, in the first fury of his anger; but after cooling upon it, he got rid of the former only, and gave

me his vacant place. Thus my office of supervisor was suppressed very shortly after its creation; nor did I

relinquish it with any reluctance. To define it strictly and properly, it was nothing better than that of a spy

with a sounding title; there was nothing substantial in the nature of the appointment: whereas to the

stewardship was tied the key of the strong box, and with that goes the mastery of the whole family. There are

so many little perquisites and so much patronage attached to that department of administration, that a man

But our Neapolitan was not so easily to be driven from his strongholds. Observing to what a pitch of savage

zeal I carried my integrity, and that I was up every morning time enough to enter in my books the exact

quantity of meat that came from market, he abandoned the practice of sending it off by wholesale: yet the

plunderer did not therefore contract the scale of his demands on the animal creation. He was cunning enough

to make it as broad as it was long, by arranging the services with so much the more profusion. Thus, what

was sent down again untouched being his property by culinary common law, he had nothing to do but to

pamper up his pet with victuals ready dressed, instead of giving her the trouble of cooking for herself. The

devil will levy his due out of every transaction; so that the count was very little the better for his paragon of a

steward. The unbounded prodigality in our style of setting out a table, even to a surfeiting degree, was a plain

hint to me of what was going forward; I therefore took upon myself to retrench the superfluities of every

course. This, however, was done with so judicious a hand, that there was no thing like parsimony to be

discovered. No one would ever have missed what was taken away; and yet the expense was reduced very

considerably by a well regulated economy. That was just what my employer wanted; good housewifery, but

a magnificent establishment. There was a love of saving at the bottom; but a taste for grandeur was the

Abuses seldom exist alone. The wine flowed too freely. If, for instance, there were a dozen gentlemen at his

lordship's table, the consumption was seldom less than fifty, sometimes sixty bottles, This was strange; and

looked as if there was more in it than met the lips of the guests. Hereupon I consulted my oracle of the

scullery, whence I derived most of my wisdom: for he brought me a faithful account of all that was said and

done in the kitchen, where they had not the least suspicion of him. It seemed that the havoc of which I

complained proceeded from a new confederacy between the clerk of the kitchen, the cook, and the under

butler. The latter carried off the bottles half full, and shared their contents with his allies, I spoke to him on

the subject, threatening to turn him and all the footmen under him out of doors at a minute's warning, if ever

they did the like again. The hint was understood, and the evil remedied. I took especial care lest the slightest

of my services should be lost upon my master, who overwhelmed me with commendations, and took a greater

liking to me every day. On my part, as a reward to the scullion, he was promoted to the situation next under

The Neapolitan was furious at encountering me in every direction. The most aggravating circumstance of the

whole was the overhauling of his accounts; for, to pare his nails the closer, I had gone into the market, and

informed myself of the prices. I followed him through all his doublings, and always took off the market

penny which he wanted to add. He must have cursed me a hundred times a day; but the curses of the wicked

fall in blessings on the good. I wonder how he could stay in his place under such discipline; but probably

Fabricio, whom I saw occasionally, rather blamed my conduct than otherwise. Heaven grant, said he, one

day, that all this virtue may meet with its reward! But between ourselves you might as well be a little more

practicable with the clerk of the kitchen. What! answered I, shall this freebooter put a bold face upon the

matter, and charge a fish at ten pistoles in his bill, which costs only four, and would you have me pass the

articles in my accounts? Why not? replied he, coolly. He has only to let you go snacks in the commission,

and the books will be balanced in your favour by the customary rule of stewardship arithmetic. Upon my

word, my friend, you are enough to overturn all regular systems of housekeeping; and you are likely to end

your days in a livery, if you let the eel slip through your fingers without skinning it. You are to learn that

fortune is a very woman; ready and eager to surrender, but expecting the formality of a summons.

I only laughed at this doctrine; and Nunez laughed at it too, when he found that bad advice was thrown away

upon an incorrigibly honest subject. He then wished to make me believe it was all a mere joke. At all events,

nothing could shake my resolution to act for my employer as for myself. Indeed my actions corresponded

with my words on that subject; for I may venture to say that in four months my master saved at least three

AT the expiration of the beforementioned time; the repose of the family was marvellously troubled by an

accident, which will appear but a trifle to the reader; and yet it was a very serious matter to the household,

especially to me. Cupid, the monkey of whom I was speaking, that animal, so much the idol of our lord and

master, attempting to leap from one window to another, performed so ill as to fall into the court and put his

leg out of joint. No sooner were the fatal tidings carried to the count, than he sung a dirge which pealed

through all the neighbourhood. In the extremity of his sufferings, every inmate without exception was taken

to task, and we were all within an inch of being packed off about our business. But the storm only rumbled

without falling; he gave us and our negligence to the devil, without being by any means select in the terms of

the bequest. The most notorious of the faculty in the line of fractures and dislocations were sent for. They

examined the poor dear leg, set, and bound it up. But though they all gave it as their opinion that there was no

danger, my master could not be satisfied without retaining the most eminent about the person of the animal,

It would be a manifest injustice to the family affections of his Sicilian lordship, not to commemorate all the

agonizing sensations of his soul during this period of painful suspense. Would it be thought possible that this

tender nurse did not stir from his darling Cupid's bedside all the livelong day? The bandages were never

altered or adjusted but in his presence, and he got up two or three times in the night to inquire after his

patient. The most provoking part of the business was, that all the servants, and myself in particular, were

required to be eternally on the alert, to anticipate the slightest wishes of this ridiculous baboon. In short, there

was no peace in the house, till the cursed beast, having recovered from the effects of its fall, got back again to

his old tricks and whirligigs. After this shall we be mealymouthed about believing Suetonius, when he tells

us that Caligula cared more for his horse than for all the world besides, that he gave him more than the

establishment and attendance of a senator, and that he even wanted to make him consul? Our wise master

stopped little short of the emperor in his partiality to the monkey; and had serious thoughts of purchasing for

Mine was the worst luck of any in the family; for I had so topped my part above all the other servants, by way

of paying my court to his lordship, and had nursed poor dear Cupid with such assiduity, as to throw myself

into a fit of illness. A violent fever seized me, so that I was almost at death's door. They did what they

pleased with me for a whole fortnight, without my consciousness; for the physicians and the fates were both

conspiring against me. But my youth was more than a match for the fever and the prescriptions united. When

I recovered my senses, the first use I made of them was to observe myself removed to another room. I wanted

to know why; and asked an old woman who nursed me: but she told me that I must not talk, as the physician

CH. XVI. An accident happens to the Count de Galiano's monkey; his lordship's affliction on that occasion. The illness of Gil Blas, and its consequences. 237

had expressly forbidden it. When we are well, we turn up our noses at the doctors; but when we are sick, we

It seemed best therefore to keep silence, though with an inveterate longing to hold converse with my

attendant I was debating the point in my own mind, when there came in two foppishlooking fellows, dressed

in the very extreme of fashion. Nothing less than velvet would serve their turn, with linen and lace to

correspond. They looked like men of rank; and I could have sworn that they were some of my master's

friends come to see me out of regard for him. Under that impression I attempted to sit up, and flung away my

nightcap to look genteel; but the nurse forced me under the bedclothes again, and tucked me up, announcing

The doctor came up to my bedside, felt my pulse, looked in my face; and discovering undeniable symptoms

of approaching convalescence, assumed an air of triumph, as if it was all his handiwork; and said there was

nothing wanting but to keep the bowels open, and then he flattered himself he might boast of having

performed an extraordinary cure. Speaking after this manner, he dictated a prescription to the apothecary,

looking in the glass all the time, adjusting the dress of his hair, and twisting his visage into shapes which set

me laughing in spite of my debility. At length he took his leave with a slight inclination of the head, and went

his way, more taken with the contemplation of his own pretty person, than anxious about the success of his

After his departure, the apothecary, not to have the trouble of a visit for nothing, made ready to proceed as it

is prescribed in certain cases. Whether he was afraid that the old woman's skill was not equal to the exigency,

or whether he meant to enhance his own services by assiduity, he chose to operate in person; but in spite of

practice and experience, accidents will happen. Haste to return benefits is among the most amiable

propensities of our nature; and such was my eagerness not to be behindhand with my benefactor, that his

velvet dress bore immediate testimony to the profuseness of my gratitude. This he considered merely as one

of those little occurrences which chequer the fortunes of the pharmaceutical profession. A napkin is a

resource for everything in a sick room, and least said was soonest mended; so he wiped himself quietly,

vowing indemnity and vengeance to himself for the necessity under which he unquestionably laboured of

On the following morning he returned to the attack more modestly equipped, though there was then no risk of

my springing a countermine, as he had only to administer the potion which the doctor had prescribed the

evening before. Besides that I felt myself getting better every moment, I had taken such a dislike, since the

day before, to the pilldispensing tribe, as to curse the very universities where these graduated cutthroats

kept their exercises in the faculty of slaying. In this temper of mind, I declared, with a round oath, that I

would not accept of health through such a medium, but would willingly make over Hippocrates and his

myrmidons to the devil. The apothecary, who did not care a doit what became of his compound, if it was but

I immediately ordered that bitch of a medicine to be thrown out of window, having set myself so doggedly

against it, that I would as soon have swallowed arsenic. Having once drawn the sword, I threw away the

scabbard; and erecting my tongue into an independent potentate, told my nurse in a determined tone, that she

must absolutely inform me what was become of my master. The old lady, fearing lest the development of the

mystery might completely overset me, or thinking possibly that her prey might escape out of her clutches for

want of a little irritating contradiction, was most provokingly mute; but I was so pressing in my demand to be

obeyed, that she at length gave me a decisive answer: Worthy sir, you have no longer any master but your

I could not believe my ears; and yet it was fatally the fact. That nobleman, on the second day of my

indisposition, being afraid of harbouring death under the same roof with him, had the benevolence to send me

CH. XVI. An accident happens to the Count de Galiano's monkey; his lordship's affliction on that occasion. The illness of Gil Blas, and its consequences. 238

packing with my little effects to a ready furnished room, where providence was left to cure, or a nurse to kill

me, as it happened. While the alternative was tottering on the balance, he was ordered back into Sicily, and in

the headlong haste of his obedience, never thought about me; whether it was that he numbered me already

My nurse gave me these particulars, and informed me that it was she who had called in a physician and an

apothecary, that I might not die without professional honours. I fell into profound musing at this fine story.

Farewell my brilliant establishment in Sicily! Farewell my budding hopes and blushing honours! When any

great misfortune shall have befallen you, says a certain pope, look well to your own conduct, and you will

find that there is always some thing wrong at the bottom of it. With all reverent submission to his holiness, I

cannot help thinking myself in this instance an exception to the infallibility of his maxim. How the deuce was

I to blame for being visited by a fever? There was more reason for remorse in the monkey or his master than

When I beheld the flattering chimeras with which my head was filled, all vanishing into air, into thin air, the

first thing that worried my poor brain was my portmanteau, which I ordered to be laid upon my bed to

examine it. I groaned heavily on discovering that it had been opened. Alas! my dear portmanteau, exclaimed

I, my only hope, consolation, and refuge! You have been, to all appearance, a prisoner in an enemy's country.

No, no, Signor Gil Blas, said the old woman, make yourself easy on that head; you have not fallen among

I found the dress I had on at my first entrance into the count's service; but it was in vain to look for that which

my friend from Messina had ordered for me as a member of the household. My master had not thought fit to

leave me in possession of it, or else some one had made free with it. All my other little matters were safe, and

even a large leather purse with my coin in it, which I counted over twice, not being able to believe at first that

there could be only fifty pistoles remaining out of two hundred and sixty, which was the balance of the

account before my illness. What is the meaning of all this, my good lady? said I to the nurse. Here is a leak in

the vessel. No living soul but myself has touched a farthing, answered the old woman, and I have been as

good an economist for you as possible. But illness is very expensive; one must always have one's money in

one's hand. Here! added this excellent economist, taking a bundle of papers out of her pocket, this is a

statement of debtor and creditor, as exact as a banker's book, and you will see that I have not laid out the

I ran over the account with a hasty glance; for it extended to fifteen or twenty pages. Mercy on us! The

poulterers' shops must have been exhausted, while I was in too weak a state to take sustenance! There must

have been at least twelve pistoles stewed down into broths. Other articles were much to the same tune. It was

incredible what a sum had been lavished in firing, candles, water, brooms, and innumerable articles of

housekeeping and house cleaning. After all, extortionate as the bill was, the utmost ingenuity could not raise

it above thirty pistoles, and consequently there was a deficiency of a hundred and eighty to make the account

even. I just ventured to point that out; but the old woman, with a shew of simplicity and candour, put all the

saints in the calendar into requisition to attest that there were no more than eighty pistoles in the purse when

the count's steward gave her charge of the wallet. What say you, my good woman, interrupted I with

precipitation: was it the steward who placed my effects in your hands? To be sure it was, answered she, the

very man, and with this piece of advice: Here, good mother, when Gil Blas shall be numbered with the dead,

do not fail to treat him with a handsome funeral; there is in this wallet wherewithal to defray the expenses.

Ah! most pestiferous Neapolitan! exelaimed I in the bitterness of my heart. I am no longer at a loss to

conjecture what is become of the deficiency. You have swept it off as an indemnity for a part of the plunder

which I have prevented you from making free with. After relieving my mind by exclamations, I returned

thanks to heaven that the scoundrel had been so modest as not to take the whole. Yet whatever reason I had

for believing the action to be perfectly in character for the person to whom it was imputed, the nurse had not

CH. XVI. An accident happens to the Count de Galiano's monkey; his lordship's affliction on that occasion. The illness of Gil Blas, and its consequences. 239

altogether cleared herself from my suspicions. They hovered sometimes over one and sometimes over the

other; but let them light where they would, it was all the same to me. I said nothing about the matter to the

old woman; not even so much as to haggle about the items of her fine bill. I should not have been an atom the

richer for doing so; and we must all live by our trades. The utmost of my malice was to pay her and send her

I am inclined to think that at her departure she gave the apothecary notice of her quitting the premises, and

having left me sufficiently in possession of myself to take French leave without acknowledging my

obligations to him; for she had not been gone many minutes before he came in puffing and blowing, with his

bill in his hand. There, under names which had escaped my conscription, though as arrant a physician as the

worst of them, he had set down all the hypothetical remedies which he insisted that I had taken during the

time when I could take nothing. This bill might truly be called the epitome of an apothecary's conscience.

Such being the case, we had a bustle about the payment. I pleaded for an abatement of onehalf. He swore

that he would not take a doit less than his just demand. He kept his oath and yet relaxed; for considering that

he had to do with a young man who might run away from Madrid within fourandtwenty hours, he

preferred my offer of three hundred per cent, on the prime cost of his drugs, though a pitiful profit for an

apothecary, to the risk of losing all. I counted out the money with an aching heart, and he withdrew,

chuckling over his revenge for the scurvy trick I had played him on the day of evacuation.

The physician made his appearance next; for beasts of prey inhabit the same latitudes. I fee'd him for his

visits, which had been quite as frequent as necessary, and his object was answered. But he would not leave

me without proving how hardly he had earned his money, for that he had not only expelled the enemy from

the interior, but had defended the frontiers from the attack of all the disorders on the army list of the materia

medica. He talked very learnedly, with good emphasis and discretion; so much so, that I did not comprehend

one word he said. When I had got rid of him, I flattered myself that the destinies had now done their worst.

But I was mistaken; for there came a surgeon whose face I had never seen in the whole course of my life. He

accosted me very politely, and congratulated me on the imminent danger I had escaped; attributing the happy

issue of my complaints to those which he had himself cut, with the profuse application of bleeding, cupping,

blistering, and all sorts of torments, consequent and inconsequent. Another feather out of my poor wing! I

was obliged to pay toll to the surgeon also. After so many purgatives, my purse was brought to such a state of

debility, that it might be considered as dead and gone; a mere skeleton, drained of all its vital juices.

My spirits began to flag, on the contemplation of my wretched case. In the service of my two last masters I

had wedded myself to the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; and could no longer, as heretofore, look

poverty in the face with the sternness of a cynic. It must be owned, however, that I was in the wrong to give

way to melancholy, after experiencing so often that fortune had never cast me down, but for the purpose of

raising me up again; so that my pitiful plight at the present moment, if rightly considered, was only to be

IT seemed so strange to have heard not a syllable from Nunez during this long interval, that I concluded he

must be in the country. I went to look after him as soon as I could walk, and found the fact to be, that he had

One morning when rubbing my eyes after a sound sleep, Melchior de la Ronda started into my recollection;

and that bringing to mind my promise at Grenada, of going to see his nephew, if ever I should return to

Madrid, it seemed advisable not to defer fulfilling my promise for a single day. I inquired where Don

Balthazar de Zuniga lived, and went thither straightway. On asking if Signor Joseph Navarro was at home, he

made his appearance immediately. We exchanged bows with a wellbred coolness on his part, though I had

taken care to announce my name audibly. There was no reconciling such a frosty reception with the glowing

portrait ascribed to this paragon of the buttery. I was just going to withdraw in the full determination of not

coming again, when assuming all at once an open and smiling aspect, he said with considerable earnestness:

Ah! Signor Gil Blas de Santillane, pray forgive the formality of your welcome. My memory ill seconded the

warmth of my disposition towards you. Your name had escaped me, and was not at the moment identified

with the gentleman, of whom mention was made in a letter from Grenada more than four months ago.

How happy I am to see you! added he, shaking hands with me most cordially. My uncle Melchior, whom I

love and honour like my natural father, charges me, if by chance I should have the honour of seeing you, to

entertain you as his own son, and in case of need, to stretch my own credit and that of my friends to the

utmost in your behalf. He extols the qualities of your heart and mind in terms sufficient of themselves to

engage me in your service, though his recommendation had not been added to the other motives. Consider

me, therefore, I entreat you, as participating in all my uncle's sentiments. You may depend on my friendship;

I replied to Joseph's polite assurances in suitable terms of acknowledgment; so that being both of us

warmheaded and sincere, a close intimacy sprung up without waiting for common forms. I felt no

embarassment about laying open the state of my affairs. This I had no sooner done, than he said: I take upon

myself the care of finding you a situation; meanwhile, there is a knife and fork for you here every day. You

will live rather better than at an ordinary. This offer was sure to be well relished by an invalid just recovering

with a fastidious palate and an empty pocket. It could not but be accepted; and I picked up my crumbs so fast

that at the end of a fortnight I began to look like a rosygilled son of the church. It struck me that Melchior's

nephew larded his lean sides to some purpose. But how could it be otherwise? he had three strings to his bow,

as holding the undermentioned pluralities: the butler's place, the clerkship of the kitchen, and the stewardship.

Furthermore, without meaning to question my friend's honesty, they do say that the comptroller of the

My recovery was entirely confirmed, when my friend Joseph, on my coming in to dinner as usual one day,

said with an air of congratulation: Signor Gil Blas, I have a very tolerable situation in view for you. You must

know that the Duke of Lerma, first minister of the crown in Spain, giving himself up entirely to state affairs,

throws the burden of his own on two confidential persons. Don Diego de Monteser takes the charge of

collecting his rents, and Don Rodrigo de Calderona superintends the finances of his household. These two

officers are paramount in their departments, having nothing to do with one another. Don Diego has generally

two deputies to transact the business; and finding just now that one of them had been discharged, I have been

canvassing for you. Signor Monteser having the greatest possible regard for me, granted my request at once,

on the strength of my testimony to your morals and capacity. We will pay our respects to him after dinner.

We did not miss our appointment. I was received with every mark of favour, and promoted in the room of the

dismissed deputy. My business consisted in visiting the farms, in giving orders for the necessary repairs, in

dunning the farmers, and keeping them to time in their payments; in a word, the tenants were all under my

thumb, and Don Diego checked my accounts every month with a minuteness which few receivers could have

borne. But this was exactly what I wanted. Though my uprightness had been so ill requited by my late master,

One day news came that the castle of Lerma had taken fire, and was more than half burnt down. I

immediately went thither to estimate the loss. In forming myself to a nicety, and on the spot, respecting all

the particulars of the unlucky accident, I drew up a detailed narrative, which Monteser shewed to the Duke of

Lerma. That minister, though vexed at the circumstance, was struck with the memorial, and inquired who was

the author. Don Diego thought it not enough to answer the question, but spoke of me in such high terms, that

his excellency recollected it six months afterwards, on occasion of an incident I shall now relate, had it not

been for which I might never, perhaps, have been employed at court. It was as follows:

There lived at that time in Princes Street an elderly lady, by name In�silla de Cantarilla. Her birth was a

matter of mystery. Some said she was the daughter of a musical instrumentmaker, and others gave her a

high military extraction. However that might be, she was a very extraordinary personage. Nature had gifted

her with the singular talent of winning men's hearts in defiance of time, and in contradiction to her own laws;

for she was now entering upon the fourth quarter of her century. She had been the reigning toast of the old

court, and levied tribute on the passions of the new. Age, though at daggers drawn with beauty, was

completely foiled in its assault upon her charms; they might be somewhat faded, but the touch of sympathy

they excited in their decline was more pleasing that the vivid glow of their meridian lustre. An air of dignity,

a transporting wit and humour, an unborrowed grace in her deportment, perpetuated the reign of passion, and

Don Valerio de Luna, one of the Duke of Lerma's secretaries, a young fellow of fiveandtwenty, meeting

with In�silla, fell violently in love with her. He made his sentiments known, enacted all the mummery of

despair, and followed up the usual catastrophe of every amorous drama so much according to the unities and

rules, that it was difficult, in the very torrent and whirlwind of his passion, to beget a temperance that might

give it smoothness. The lady, who had her reason for not choosing to fall in with his humour, was at a loss

how to get out of the difficulty. One day she was in hopes to have found the means by calling the young man

into her closet, and there pointing to a clock upon the table. Mark the precise hour, said she; just seventyfive

years ago was I brought upon the stage of this fantastical world. In good earnest, would it sit well upon my

time of life to be engaged in affairs of gallantry? Betake yourself to reflection, my good child; stifle

sentiments so unsuitable to your own circumstances and mine. Sensible as this language was, the spark, no

longer bowing to the authority of reason, answered the lady with all the impetuosity of a man racked by the

most excruciating torments: Cruel In�silla, why have you recourse to such frivolous remonstrances? Do you

think they can change your charms or my desires? Delude not yourself with so false a hope. As long as your

loveliness or my delusion lasts, I shall never cease to adore you. Well, then, rejoined she, since you are

obstinate enough to persist in the resolution of wearying me with your importunities, my doors shall

henceforth be shut against you. You are banished, and I beg to be no longer troubled with your company.

It may be supposed, perhaps, that after this, Don Valerio, baffled, made good his retreat like a prudent

general. Quite the reverse! He became more troublesome than ever. Love is to lovers just what wine is to

drunkards. The swain intreated, sighed, looked, and sighed again; when all at once, changing his note from

childish treble to the big manly voice of bluster and ravishment, he swore that he would have by foul means

what he could not obtain by fair. But the lady, repulsing him courageously, said with a piercing look of strong

resentment, Hold, imprudent wretch! I shall put a curb on your mad career. Learn that you are my own son.

Don Valerio was thunderstruck at these words; the tempest of his rage subsided. But, conjecturing that

Inesilla had only started this device to rid herself of his solicitations, he answered, That is a mere romance of

the moment to steal away from my ardent desires. No, no, said she, interrupting him, I disclose a mystery

which should have been for ever buried, had you not reduced me to so painful a necessity. It is

sixandtwenty years since I was in love with your father, Don Pedro de Luna, then governor of Segovia;

you were the fruit of our mutual passion: he owned you, brought you up with care and tenderness, and having

no children born in wedlock, he had nothing to hinder him from distinguishing your good qualities by the

gifts of fortune. On my part, I have not forsaken you; as soon as you were of an age to be introduced into the

world, I drew you into the circle of my acquaintance, to form your manners to that polish of good company,

so necessary for a gentleman, which is only to be gained in female society. I have done more: I have

employed all my credit to introduce you to the prime minister. In short, I have interested myself for you as I

should have done for my own son. After this confession, take your measures accordingly. If you can purge

your affections from their dross, and look on me as a mother, you are not banished from my presence, and I

shall treat you with my accustomed tenderness. But if you are not equal to an effort, which nature and reason

demand from you, fly instantly, and release me from the horror of beholding you.

Inesilla spoke to this effect. Meanwhile Don Valerio preserved a sudden silence: it might have been

interpreted into a virtuous struggle, a conquest over the weakness of his heart. But his purposes were far

different; he had another scene to act before his mother. Unable to withstand the total overthrow of all his

wild projects, he basely yielded to despair. Drawing his sword, he plunged it in his own bosom. His fate

resembled that of Oedipus, with this distinction; that the Theban put out his own eyes from remorse for the

crime he had perpetrated, while the Castilian, on the contrary, committed suicide from disappointment at the

The unhappy Don Valerio was not released from his sufferings immediately. He had leisure left for

recollection, and for making his peace with heaven, be fore he rushed into the presence of his Maker. As his

death vacated one of the secretaryships on the Duke of Lerma's establishment, that minister, not having

forgotten my memoir on the subject of the fire, nor the high character he had heard of me, nominated me to

MONTESER was the person to inform me of this agreeable circumstance, which he did in the following

terms: My friend Gil Blas, though I do not lose you without regret, I am too much your wellwisher not to be

delighted at your promotion in the room of Don Valerio. You cannot fail to make a princely fortune, provided

you act upon two hints which I have to give you: the first, to affect so total a devotion to his excellency's

good pleasure, as to leave no room to conceive it possible that you have any other object or interest in life

the second, to pay your court assiduously to Signor Don Rodrigo de Calderona; for that personage models

and remodels, fashions and touches upon the mind of his master, just as if it was clay under the hands of the

designer. If you are fortunate enough to chime in with that favourite secretary, you will travel post to wealth

Sir, said I to Don Diego, returning him thanks at the same time for his good advice, be pleased to give some

little opening to Don Rodrigo's character. I have heard a few anecdotes of him. One would suppose him, from

some accounts, not to be the best creature in the world; but the people at large are inveterate caricaturists

when they draw courtiers at full length; though, after all, the likeness will strike, in spite of the aggravation.

Tell me, therefore, I beseech you, what is your own sincere opinion of Signor Calderona. That is rather an

awkward question, answered my principal with an ironical smile. I should tell any one but yourself, without

flinching, that he was a gentleman of the strictest honour, upon whose fair fame the breath of calumny had

never dared to blow; but I really cannot put off such a copy of my countenance upon you. Relying as I do on

your discretion, it becomes a duty to deal candidly in the delineation of Don Rodrigo; for without that, it

would be playing fast and loose with you to recommend the cultivation of his goodwill.

You are to know then, that when his excellency was no more than plain Don Francisco de Sandoval, this man

had the humility to serve him as his lackey; since which time he has risen by degrees to the post of principal

secretary. A prouder excrescence of the dunghill never sprung into vegetation on a summer's day. He

considers himself as the Duke of Lerma's colleague; and in point of fact, he may truly be said to parcel out

the loaves and fishes of administration, since he gives away offices and governments at the suggestions of his

CH. II. Gil Blas is introduced to the Duke of Lerma, who admits him among the number of his secretaries, and requires a specimen of his talents, with which he is well satisfied. 243

own caprice. The public grumbles and growls upon occasion; but who cares for the grumbling and growling

of the public? Let him steal a pair of gloves from the prostitution of political honour, and the bronze upon his

forehead will be proof against the peltings of scandal. What I have said will decide your dealings towards so

supercilious a compound of dust and ashes. Yes, to be sure, said I; leave me alone for that It will be strange

indeed if I cannot wriggle myself into his good graces. If one can but get on the blind side of a man who is to

be made a property, it must be want of skill in the player if the game is lost. Exactly so, replied Monteser; and

We went at once to the minister, whom we found in his audience chamber. His levee was more crowded

than the king's. There were commanders and knights of St James and of Calatrava, making interest for

governments and viceroyalties; bishops who, labouring under oppression of the breath and tightness of the

chest in their own dioceses, had been recommended the air of an archbishopric by their physicians; while the

sounder lungs of lower dignitaries were strong enough to inhale the Theban atmosphere of a suffragan see. I

observed besides some reduced officers dancing attendance to Captain Chinchilla's tune, and catching cold in

fishing for a pension, which was never likely to pay the doctor for their cure. If the duke did not satisfy their

wants, he put a pleasant face upon their importunities; and it struck me that he returned a civil answer to all

We waited patiently till the routine of ceremony was despatched. Then said Don Diego: My lord, this is Gil

Blas de Santillane, the young man appointed by your excellency to succeed Don Valerio. The duke now took

more particular notice of me, saying obligingly, that I had already earned my promotion by my services. He

then took me to a private conference in his closet, or rather to an examination. My birth, parentage, and

course of life were the objects of his inquiry; nor would he be satisfied without the particulars, and those in

the spirit of sincerity. What a career to run over before a patron! Yet it was impossible to lie, in the presence

of a prime minister. On the other hand, my vanity was concerned in suppressing so many circumstances, that

there was no venturing on an unqualified confession. What cunning scene had Roscius then to act? A little

painting and tattooing might decently be employed to disguise the nakedness of truth, and spare her

unsophisticated blushes. But he had studied her complexion, as well as the beauties of her natural form.

Monsieur de Santillane, said he with a smile on the close of my narrative, I perceive that hitherto you have

had your principles to choose. My lord, answered I, colouring up to the eyes, your excellency enjoined me to

deal sincerely; and I have complied with your orders. I take your doing so in good part, replied he. It is all

very well, my good fellow: you have escaped from the snares of this wicked world more by luck than

management: it is wonderful that bad example should not have corrupted you irreparably. There are many

men of strict virtue and exemplary piety, who would have turned out the greatest rogues in existence, if their

Friend Santillane, continued the minister, ponder no longer on the past; consider yourself as to the very bone

and marrow the king's; live henceforth but for his service. Come this way; I will instruct you in the nature of

your business. He carried me into a little closet adjoining his own, which contained a score of thick folio

registers. This is your workshop, said he. All these registers compose an alphabetical peerage, giving the

heraldry and history of all the nobility and gentry in the several kingdoms and principalities of the Spanish

monarchy. In these volumes are recorded the services rendered to the state by the present possessors and their

ancestors, descending even to the personal animosities and rencounters of the individuals and their houses.

Their fortunes, their manners, in a word, all the pros and cons of their character are set down according to the

letter of ministerial scrutiny; so that they no sooner enter on the list of court candidates, that my eye catches

up the very chapter and verse of their pretensions. To furnish this necessary information, I have pensioned

scouts everywhere on the lookout, who send me private notices of their discoveries; but as these documents

are for the most part drawn up in a gossiping and provincial style, they require to be translated into

gentlemanly language, or the king would not be able to support the perusal of the registers. This task

demands the pen of a polite and perspicuous writer; I doubt not but you will justify your claim to the

CH. II. Gil Blas is introduced to the Duke of Lerma, who admits him among the number of his secretaries, and requires a specimen of his talents, with which he is well satisfied. 244

After this introduction, he put a memorial into my hand, taken from a large portfolio full of papers, and then

withdrew from my closet, that my first specimen might be manufactured in all the freedom of solitude. I read

the memorial, which was not only stuffed with a most uncouth jargon, but breathed a brimstone spirit of

rancour and personal revenge. This was most foul, strange, and unnatural! for the homily was written by a

monk. He hacked and hewed a Catalan family of some note most unmercifully; with what reason or truth, it

must be reserved for a more penetrating inquirer to decide. It read for all the world like an infamous libel, and

I had some scruples about becoming the publisher of the calumny; nevertheless, young as I was at court, I

plunged head foremost, at the risk of sinking and destroying his reverence's soul. The wickedness, if there

was any, would be put down to his running account with the recording angel; I therefore had nothing to do

but to vilify, in the purest Spanish phraseology, some two or three generations of honest men and loyal

I had already blackened four or five pages, when the duke, impatient to know how I got on, came back and

said Santillane, shew me what you have done; I am curious to see it. At the same time, casting his eye

over the transcript, he read the beginning with much attention. It seemed to please him; strange that he could

be so pleased! Prepossessed as I have been in your favour, observed he, I must own that you have surpassed

my expectations. It is not merely the elegance and distinctness of the handwriting! There is something

animated and glowing in the composition. You will do ample credit to my choice, and fully make up for the

loss of your predecessor. He would not have cut my panegyric so short, if his nephew the Count de Lemos

had not interrupted him in the middle of it. By the warmth and frequency of his excellency's welcome, it was

evident that they were the best friends in the world. They were immediately closeted together on some family

business, of which I shall speak in the sequel. The king's affairs at this time were obliged to play second to

While they were caballing it struck twelve. As I knew that the secretaries and their clerks quitted office at that

hour to go and dine wherever their business and desire should point them, I left my prize performance behind

me, and went to the gayest tavern at the court end of the town, for I had nothing further to do with Monteser,

who had paid my salary, and taken his leave of me. But a common eatinghouse would have been a very

improper place for me to be seen in. "Consider yourself as to the very bone and marrow the king's." This

metaphorical expression of the duke had given birth to a real and tangible ambition in my soul, which put

I TOOK especial care, on my first entrance, to instil into the tavernkeeper's conception that I was secretary

to the prime minister; nor was it easy, in that view of my rank and consequence, to order anything sufficiently

sumptuous for dinner. To have selected from the bill of fare, might have looked as if I descended to the

meanness of calculation; I therefore told him to send up the best the house afforded. My orders were

punctually obeyed; and the anxious assiduity of the attendance pampered my fancy as much as the dishes did

my palate. As to the bill, I had nothing to do with it but to pay it. Down went a pistole upon the table, and the

waiters pocketed the difference, which was somewhat more than a quarter. After this display of grandeur I

strutted out, practising those obstreperous clearings of the throat which announce, by empty sound, the

There was at the distance of twenty yards a large house with lodgings to let, principally frequented by foreign

nobility. I rented at once a suite of apartments, consisting of five or six rooms elegantly furnished. From my

style of living, any one would have thought I had two or three thousand ducats of yearly income. The first

month was paid in advance. Afterwards I returned to business, and employed the whole afternoon in going on

CH. III. All is not gold that glitters. Some uneasiness resulting from the discovery of that principle in philosophy, and its practical application to existing circumstances. 245

with what I had begun in the morning. In a closet adjoining mine there were two other secretaries; but their

office was only to copy out fair. I got acquainted with them as we were shutting up for the evening; and, by

way of smoothing the first overtures towards friendship, invited them home with me to my tavern, where I

ordered the choicest delicacies of the season, with a profusion of the most exquisite wines.

We sat down to table, and began bandying about more merriment than wit; for with all due deference to my

guests, it was but too visible that they owed their official situations to any circumstance rather than to their

abilities. They were adepts, it must be confessed, in all the history and mystery of scrivening and clerkship;

but as for polite literature and university education, there was not even a suspicion of it in all their talk.

To make amends for that defect, they had a keen eye to the main chance; and though sensible how high an

honour it was to be on the prime minister's establishment, there were some dashes of acid in the cup of good

fortune. It is now full five months, said one of them, that we have been serving at our own cost. We do not

touch one farthing of salary; and, what is worst of all, our very board wages are shamefully in arrear. There is

no knowing what footing we are upon. As for me, said the other, I would willingly be tied up to the halbert,

and receive a percentage in lashes, for the liberty of changing my berth; but I dare not either take myself off

or petition for my discharge, after having transcribed such state secrets as have passed under my inspection. I

might chance to become too well acquainted with the tower of Segovia or the castle of Alicant.

How do you manage for a subsistence, then? said I. You must of course have means of your own. These they

represented as very slender; but that, fortunately for them, they lodged with a kind hearted widow, who

boarded them on tick, at the rate of a hundred pistoles a year for each These anecdotes of a court life, not one

of which escaped me, completely ventilated all the rising fumes of pride. It could not be supposed that more

consideration would be shewn to me than to others, and consequently there was nothing to be so puffed up

with in my post; there seemed to be much cry and little wool, a discovery which rendered it expedient to

husband my finances with a narrower economy. A picture like this was enough to cure my taste for treating. I

repented not having left these secretaries to find their own supper; for they played a most cruel knife and fork

at mine! and, when the bill was brought, I squabbled with the landlord about the charges.

We parted at midnight; and the early breaking up was to be laid at my door; for I did not propose another

bottle. They went home to their widow, and I withdrew to my magnificent lodgings, which I was now mad

with myself for having taken, and was fully determined to give up at the month's end. My bed of down was

now converted into a couch of thorns; sleep had abandoned his narcotic tenement, and sold the feesimple of

my repose to the demon of eternal wakefulness. The remainder of the night was passed in contriving not to

serve the state too patriotically. For that purpose I bethought me of Monteser's good counsel. I got up with the

intention of making my bow to Don Rodrigo de Calderona. My present temper was just pat to the purpose of

ingratiating myself with so high and mighty a gentleman; whose patronage was indispensable to my

His apartments communicated with the duke's, and rivalled them in the lustre of their decorations. The field

officer could scarcely be distinguished from the subaltern by any outward distinction in his paraphernalia. I

sent in my name as Don Valerio's successor; but that did not hinder me from being kept kicking my heels for

a good hour. Trusty, but novice officer of the king, said I, while ruminating on court manners, lean a lesson of

patience, if so please you. You must begin with shewing paces yourself, and afterwards make others bite the

At length the door of the inner room opened. I went in, and advanced towards Don Rodrigo, who had just

been writing an amorous epistle to his charming Siren, and was giving it to Pedrillo at that very moment. I

had never manufactured my face and air into such a counterfeit of reverence before the Archbishop of

Grenada, nor on my introduction to the Count de Galiano, nor even in presence of the prime minister himself:

the crisis of my fawning was reserved for Signor de Calderona. I paid my respects to him with my body bent

CH. III. All is not gold that glitters. Some uneasiness resulting from the discovery of that principle in philosophy, and its practical application to existing circumstances. 246

down to the very ground, as if crouching under the ken of a superior intelligence; and solicited his protection

in strains of humble hypocrisy, at which my cheek now burns with shame, to think that man can so debase

himself before his fellowman. My servility would have recoiled to my own undoing, had it been practised

towards a compound of any manly and independent ingredients. As for this fellow, he swallowed flattery by

the lump without mastication; and assured me, just as if he meant what he said, that he would leave no stone

Hereupon, thanking him with unlimited expressions of attachment for his kind and generous sentiments, I

sold my very soul and all my little stock of conscience to his free disposal. But as this farce might be tiresome

if prolonged, I took my leave, apologizing for having broken in upon his more serious avocations. As soon as

I had finished this abominable scene, I slunk back to my desk, where I finished my prescribed task. The duke

was at my elbow the next morning. The end of my performance was not less to his mind than the beginning;

and he praised it accordingly: This is extremely well indeed! Copy this abridgment in your best hand into the

excellency, and was delighted at his mild and familiar deportment. What a contrast to Calderona! They might

Today I dined at a cheap ordinary, and sunk the secretary upon my messmates, till I should ascertain what

solid profit might accrue from all my bows and scrapes. I had funds for three months, or thereabouts. That

interval I allowed myself for casting my bread upon the waters. But as the shortest speculations are the safest,

if my salary was not paid by that time, a long farewell to the court, its frippery, and its falsehood! Thus were

my plans arranged. For two months I laboured hard and fast to stand well with Calderona: but his senses were

so callous to all my assiduity, that it seemed labour in vain to build on so hopeless a foundation. This idea

produced a change in my conduct. I left some greener fool to fumigate the nostrils of this idol; and placed all

my own dependence on making my ground sure with the duke, by the benefit of our frequent conferences.

THOUGH his grace's interviews with me were short as the fleeting visions of supernatural communication,

my turn and character won its way gradually into his excellency's good liking. One day after dinner, he said:

Attend to me, Gil Blas. I really like you very muck You are a zealous, confidential lad, full of understanding

and discretion. My trust cannot be misplaced in such hands. I threw myself at his feet, at the music of these

words; and kissing his outstretched hand, answered thus: Is it possible that your excellency can think so

favourably of your servant? What a host of enemies will such a preference conjure up against me! But Don

You have nothing to fear from that quarter, replied the duke. I know Calderona. He has loved me from his

cradle. Every movement of his heart is in unison with mine. He cherishes whatever I love, and hates in exact

proportion to my dislike. So far from being alarmed at his illwill, you ought, on the contrary, to hug yourself

on his peculiar partiality. This let me at once into the abysses of Don Rodrigo's character. He shuffled and cut

the cards to his own deal, and paid his debts of honour out of his excellency's pool. One could not be too

To begin, pursued the duke, with a proof my thorough reliance on your faith, I will open to you a

longprojected design. It is necessary for you to be informed of it, to qualify you for the commissions with

which I shall hereafter have occasion to intrust to you. For a great length of time have I beheld my authority

universally respected, my decisions implicitly adopted, places, pensions, governments, viceroyalties, and

church preferments all awaiting my disposal. Without umbrage to my royal master, I may be said to be

absolute in Spain. My individual fortunes can be pushed no higher. But I would willingly fix firm the

CH. IV. Gil Blas becomes a favourite with the Duke of Lerma, and the confidant of an important secret. 247

structure I have raised; for the storms are already beginning to beat about the citadel of my peace. My only

safety must consist in nominating my nephew, the Count de Lemos, as my successor in the ministry.

This profound courtier, observing my astonishment, went on thus. I see plainly, Santillane, I see plainly what

surprises you. It seems strange and unaccountable that I should prefer my nephew to my own son, the Duke

d'Uzeda. But you are to learn that this last has too narrow a genius to fill up my place in politics; and there are

other reasons why I set my face against him. He has found out the secret of making himself agreeable to the

king, who wants him for his interior cabinet; and backstairs influence is what I cannot bear. Royal favour is

a sort of political mistress; exclusive possession is its only charm. The very existence of the passion is

identified with inextinguishable jealousy; nor can we the better endure to share the bliss, because our rival

Thus do I lay bare the very recesses of my soul. I have already tried to ruin the Duke d'Uzeda with the king;

but having failed, am pointing my artillery towards another object. I am determined that the Count de Lemos

shall stand first with the Prince of Spain. Being gentleman of his bedchamber, he has opportunities of talking

with him continually; and, besides that he has a winning manner with him, I know a sure method of enabling

him to succeed in his enterprise. By this device, my nephew will be pitted against my son. The cousins

harbouring unfavourable suspicions of each other, will both be forced to place themselves under my

protection; and the necessity of the case will render them submissive to my will. This is my project; nor will

your assistance be of slender avail to its success. It is you whom I shall make the private channel of

After this confidence, which sounded for all the world like the clink of current coin, my mind was easy about

the future. At length, said I, behold me taking shelter under Plutus's gutter; the golden shower may drench me

to the skin, before I shall cry hold, enough! It is impossible that the bosom friend of a man, by whom the

whole music of the political machine is tempered, should be left to thrum upon the discord of poverty. Full of

these harmonious visions, my fifths and octaves were but little untuned by the sensible declension of my

THE minister's growing partiality towards me was soon noticed. He displayed it ostentatiously, by

committing his portfolio to my custody, which it was his habit to carry in his own hand when he went to

council. This novelty causing me to be looked upon as a rising favourite, excited the envy of certain persons,

so that I was preciously sprinkled with the hellish dew of court malevolence. My two neighbours the

secretaries were not the last to compliment me on my budding honours, and invited me to supper at the

widow's, not so much by way of returning my hospitality, as with an eye to business in the cultivation of my

acquaintance. Parties were made for me everywhere. Even the haughty Don Rodrigo was capinhand to me.

He now called me nothing less than Signor de Santillane, though the moon had scarcely changed her face

since he thee'd and thou'd me, without ever bethinking him that he was talking to something above a pauper.

He heaped me up and pressed me down with civilities, especially within eyeshot of our common patron. But

the fool was wiser than to be caught with chaff. The good breeding of my returns was nicely proportioned to

my thorough detestation of my humble servant: a rascal who had lived in court all his life could not have

I likewise accompanied my lord duke when he had an audience of the king, which was usually three times a

day. In the morning he went into his majesty's chamber as soon as he was awake. There he dropped down on

his marrow bones by the bedside, talked over what was to be done in the course of the day, and put into the

royal mouth the speeches the royal tongue was to make. He then withdrew. After dinner he came back again;

CH. V. The joys, the honours, and the miseries of a court life, in the person of Gil Blas. 248

not for state affairs, but for what, what? and a little gossip. He was well instructed in all the tittletattle of

Madrid, which was sold to him at the earliest of the season. Lastly, in the evening he saw the king again for

the third time, put whatever colour he pleased on the transactions of the day, and, as a matter of course,

requested his instructions for the morrow. While he was with the king, I kept in the antechamber, where

people of the first quality, sinking that they might rise, threw themselves in the way of my observation, and

thought the day not lost if I had deigned to exchange a few words of common civility with them. Was it to be

wondered at, if myselfimportance fattened upon such food? There are many folks at court, who stalk about

One day my vanity was still more highly pampered. The king, to whom the duke had puffed off my style, was

curious to see a sample of it. His excellency made me bring the register of Catalonia and myself into the royal

presence; telling me to read the first memorial I had digested. If so catholic a critic overpowered my modesty

at first, the minister's encouragement recalled my scattered spirits, and I read with good tone and emphasis

what his majesty deigned to hear with some symptoms of approbation. He spoke handsomely of my

performance, and recommended my fortunes to the special care of his minister. My humility was not the

greater for the augmentation of my consequence; and a particular conversation some days afterwards with the

I waited on that nobleman from his uncle at the Prince of Spain's court, and presented credentials from the

duke, directing him to deal unreservedly with me, as with a man who was embarked in their design and

selected by himself exclusively as their go between. The count then took me to a room, where he locked the

door, and then spoke as follows: Since you are confidential with the Duke of Lerma, I doubt not you deserve

to be so, and shall unbosom myself to you without hesitation. You are to know that matters go on just as we

could wish. The Prince of Spain distinguishes me above the most assiduous of his courtiers. I had a private

conversation with him this morning, wherein he expressed some disgust at being restrained by the king's

avarice from following the inclinations of his liberal heart, and living on a scale befitting his august rank. On

this head I chimed in with his regrets; and taking advantage of the opportunity, promised to carry him a

thousand pistoles early tomorrow morning, as an earnest of larger sums with which I have engaged to feed

his necessities forthwith. He was in ecstasy at my promises; and I am certain of securing his grace and favour

in tail, if I can but fulfil my engagement Acquaint my uncle with these particulars, and come back in the

I left the Count de Lemos with the last words still quivering on his lips, and went back to the Duke of Lerma,

who, on my report, sent to ask Calderona for a thousand pistoles, which he charged me to carry to the count

in the evening. Away went I on my errand, muttering to myself So, so! now I have discovered the

minister's infallible receipt for the cure of all evils. Faith and troth, he is in the right; and to all appearance he

may draw as copiously as he pleases from the spring, without exhausting the source. I can easily guess what

bag those pistoles come from; but after all, is it not the order of nature that the parent should nurture and

maintain the child! The Count de Lemos, at our parting, said to me in a low voice Farewell, my good and

worthy friend. The Prince of Spain has a little hankering after the women; we must have a little conversation

on that subject one of these days; I foresee that your agency will be very applicable on that head. I returned

with my head full of this last hint, which it was impossible to misinterpret. Neither did I wish to do so, for it

suited my talents to a nicety. What the devil is to happen next? said I. Behold me on the point of becoming

pimp to the heir of the monarchy. Whether pimping was a virtue or a vice, I did not stop to inquire: the coarse

surtout of morality would have worn but shabbily while the passions of so exalted a gallant were in the glare

and glow of all their newest gloss. What a promotion for me to be the provider of pleasure to a great prince!

Fair and softly, Master Gil Blas, some one may say: after all, you will be but second minister. May be so; but

at bottom the honour of both these posts is equal; the difference lies in the profit only.

While executing these honourable commissions, and getting forward daily in the good graces of the prime

minister, what a happy being should I have been, if statesmen were born with a set of intestines to turn the

CH. V. The joys, the honours, and the miseries of a court life, in the person of Gil Blas. 249

chameleon's diet into chyle! It was more than two months since I had got rid of my grand lodging, and had

taken up my quarters in a little room scarcely good enough for a banker's clerk. Though this was not quite as

it should be, yet since I went out betimes in the morning, and never returned at night before bedtime, there

was not much to quarrel about on that score. All day I was the hero of my own stage, or rather of the duke's.

It was a principal part that I was playing. But when I retired from this brilliant theatre to my own cockloft, the

great lord vanished, and poor Gil Blas was left behind, without a royal image in his pocket, and what was

worse, without the means of conjuring up his glorious resemblance. Besides that it would have wounded my

pride to have divulged my necessities, there was not a creature of my acquaintance who could have assisted

me but Navarro, and him I had too palpably neglected since my introduction at court, to venture on soliciting

his benevolence. I had been obliged to sell my wardrobe article by article. There was nothing more left than

was absolutely necessary to make a decent appearance. I no longer went to the ordinary, because I had no

longer wherewithal to pay my score. How then did I make shift to keep body and soul together? There was

every morning, in our offices, a scanty breakfast set out, consisting of a little bread and wine; this was the

whole of our commons on the minister's establishment. I never knew what it was to exceed this stint during

Such was the fare of a man who made a splendid figure at court; but his illustrious fortunes, like those of

other courtiers, were more a subject of pity than of grudge. I could no longer resist the pressure of my

circumstances, and ultimately resolved on their disclosure at a seasonable opportunity. By good luck such an

occasion offered at the Escurial, whither the king and the Prince of Spain removed some days afterwards.

WHEN the king kept his court at the Escurial, all the world was at free quarters: under such easy

circumstances I did not feel where the saddle galled. My bed was in a wardrobe near the duke's chamber. One

morning that minister, having got up according to his cursed custom at daybreak, made me take my writing

apparatus, and follow him into the palace gardens. We went and sat down under an avenue of trees; myself,

as he would have it, in the posture of a man writing on the crown of his hat; his attitude was with a paper in

his hand, and any one would have supposed he had been reading. At some distance, we must have looked as

if the scale of Europe was to turn upon our decision; but between ourselves, who partook of it, the talk was

For more than an hour had I been tickling his excellency's fancy with all the conceits, engendered by a merry

nature and an eccentric course of life, when two magpies perched on the trees above us. Their clack and

clatter was so obstreperous, as to force our attention whether we would or no. These birds, said the duke,

seem to be in dudgeon with one another. I should like to learn the cause of their quarrel. My lord, said I, your

curiosity reminds me of an Indian story in Pilpay or some other fabulist. The minister insisted on the

There reigned in Persia a good monarch, who not being blessed with capacities of sufficient compass to

govern his dominions in his own person, left the care of them to his grand vizier. That minister, whose name

was Atalmuc, was possessed of firstrate talents. He supported the weight of that unwieldy monarchy,

without sinking under the burden. He preserved it in profound peace. His art consisted in uniting the love of

the royal authority with the reverence of it; while the people at large looked up to the vizier as to an

affectionate father, though a devoted servant of his prince. Atalmuc had a young Cachemirian among his

secretaries, by name Zeangir, to whom he was particularly attached. He took pleasure in his conversation,

invited him frequently to the chase, and opened to him his most secret thoughts. One day as they were

hunting together in a wood, the vizier, at the croaking of two ravens on a tree, said to his secretary I

should like to know what those birds are talking about in their jargon. My lord, answered the Cachemirian,

CH. VI. Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a hint of his wretched condition. That minister deals with him accordingly. 250

your wishes may be fulfilled. Indeed! How so? replied Atalmuc. Because, rejoined Zeangir, a dervise read in

many mysteries, has taught me the language of birds. If you wish it, I will lay my ear close to these, and will

The vizier agreed to the proposal. The Cachemirian got near the ravens, and affected to suck in their

discourse. Then, returning to his master, My lord, said he, would you believe it? We are ourselves the topic of

their talk. Impossible! exclaimed the Persian minister. Prithee now, what do they say of us? One of the two,

replied the secretary, spoke thus: Here he is, the very man; the grand vizier Atalmuc, the guardian eagle of

Persia, hovering over her like the parent bird over its nest, watching without intermission for the safety of its

brood. For the purpose of unbending from his wearisome toils, he is hunting in this wood with his faithful

Zeangir. How happy must that secretary be, to serve so partial and indulgent a master! Fair and softly,

observed the other raven shrewdly, fair and softly! Make not too much parade about that Cachemirian's

happiness. Atalmuc, it is true, talks and jokes familiarly with him, honours him with his confidence, and may

very possibly intend to signalize his friendship by a lucrative post; but between the cup and the lip Zeangir

may perish with thirst. The poor devil lodges in a ready furnished apartment, where there is not an article of

furniture for his use. In a word, he leads a starving life, with all the paraphernalia of a plumpfed courtier.

The grand vizier never troubles his head about inquiring into the right or wrong of his affairs; but satisfied

with empty good wishes towards him, leaves his favourite within the ruthless gripe of poverty.

I stopped here, to see how the Duke of Lerma would take it; and he asked me with a smile what effect the

fable had produced on the mind of Atalmuc; and whether the grand vizier had not felt a little offended at the

secretary's presumption. No, my noble lord, answered I, with some little embarrassment at the question;

historians say that his ingenuity was amply rewarded. He was more lucky than discreet, replied the duke with

a serious air; there are some ministers who would esteem it no joke to be lectured at that rate. But the king

will not be long before he is getting up; my duty demands my attendance. After this hint he walked off with

hasty strides towards the palace without throwing away a word more upon me, and to all appearance in high

I followed him up to the very door of his majesty's chamber, and went thence to arrange my papers in the

places whence they had been taken. Then I entered a closet where our two copying secretaries were at work;

for they also were of the migratory party. What is the matter with you, Signor de Santillane? said they at the

I was too much mortified at the ill success of my narrative, to be cautious in the expression of my grief. On

the recital of what had passed with the duke, they sympathized in my disappointment You have some reason

to fret, said one of them. Heaven grant you may be better treated than a secretary of Cardinal Spinosa. This

unlucky secretary, tired of working for fifteen months without pay, took the liberty of representing his

necessities to his Eminence one afternoon, and of asking for a little money towards his subsistence. It is very

proper, said the minister, that you should be paid. Here, pursued he, putting into his hands an order on the

royal treasury for a thousand ducats; go and receive that sum; but take notice at the same time that it balances

accounts between us. The secretary would have pocketed his thousand ducats without remorse, had the

thousand ducats been tangible, and the liberty of changing services secure; but just as he stepped down from

the cardinal's threshold, he was tapped on the shoulder by an alguazil, and carried away to the tower of

This little historical anecdote set my teeth chattering. All was lost and gone! There was no comfort from

within nor from without! My own impatience had been my ruin! just as if I had not borne starving, till

patience could avail no longer. Alas! said I, wherefore must I have blurted out that illstarred fable, which

went so much against the grain of the minister? He might have been just on the point of extricating me from

all my miseries; it might have been the moment of that tide in the affairs of men, which sets in for sudden and

enormous elevation. What wealth, what honours have slipped through the fingers by my blunder! I ought to

CH. VI. Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a hint of his wretched condition. That minister deals with him accordingly. 251

have been aware that great folks do not love to be forestalled, but require the common privileges of

elementary subsistence to be received as favours at their hands. It would have been more prudent to have kept

my lenten entertainment longer without bothering the duke about it, and even to have died with hunger, that

Supposing any hope to have remained, my master, when I saw him after dinner, put an extinguisher over it at

once. He was very serious with me, contrary to his usual custom, and spoke scarcely at all; an omen of dire

dismay for the remainder of the evening. The night did not pass more tranquilly: the chagrin of seeing my

agreeable illusions vanish, and the fear of swelling the calendar of state prisoners, left no room but for sighs

The following was the critical day. The duke sent for me in the morning. I went into his chamber, with the

ague fit of a criminal before his judge. Santillane, said he, showing me a paper in his hand, take this order . . .

. I shuddered at the word order, and said within myself: Oh heaven! here is the Cardinal Spinosa over again;

the carriage is ordered out for Segovia. Such was my alarm at this moment, that I interrupted the minister,

and throwing myself at his feet, May it please your lordship, said I, bathed in tears, I most humbly beseech

your excellency to forgive me for my boldness; necessity alone impelled me to acquaint you with my

The duke could not help laughing at my distress. Be comforted, Gil Blas, answered he, and hearken

attentively. Though by betraying your necessities a reproach lights upon me for not having prevented them, I

do not take it ill, my friend. I rather ought to be angry with myself for not having inquired how you were

going on. But to begin making amends for my want of attention, there is an order on the royal treasury for

fifteen hundred ducats, payable at sight. This is not all; I promise you the same sum annually; and moreover,

when people of rank and substance shall solicit your interest, I have no objection to your addressing me on

In the excess of joy occasioned by such tidings, I kissed the feet of the minister, who, having commanded me

to rise, continued in familiar conversation. I endeavoured to rally my free and easy humour; but the transition

from sorrow to rapture was too instantaneous to be natural. I felt as comical as a culprit, with a pardon

singing in his ears, just when he was on the point of being launched into eternity. My master attributed all my

flurry to the sole dread of having offended him; though the fear of perpetual imprisonment had its share of

influence on my nerves. He owned that he had affected to look cool, to see whether I should be hurt at the

alteration; that thereby he formed his opinion with respect to the liveliness of my attachment to his person,

THE king, as if on purpose to play into the hands of my impatience, returned to Madrid the very next day. I

flew like a harpy to the royal treasury, where they paid me down upon the nail the sum drawn for in my

order. Ambition and vanity now obtained complete empire over my soul. My paltry lodging was fit only for

secretaries of an inferior cast, unpractised in the mysterious language of birds; for which reason, my grand

suite of apartments fortunately being vacant, I engaged them for the second time. My next business was to

send for an eminent tailor, who arrayed the pretty persons of all the fine gentlemen in town. He took my

measure, and then introduced me to a draper, who sold me five ells of cloth, the exact quantity, as he said, to

make a suit for a man of my size. Five ells for a light Spanish dress! Whither did this draper and tailor expect

to go? . . . . But we must not be uncharitable. Tailors who have a reputation to support require more materials

for the exercise of their genius than the vulgar snippers of the shopboard. I then bought some linen, of which

CH. VII. A good use made of the fifteen hundred ducats. A first introduction to the trade of office, and an account of the profit accruing therefrom. 252

With such an equipage, there was no doing without a footman; so that I desired Vincent Ferrero, my landlord,

to look out for one. Most of the foreigners who were recommended to his lodgings, on their arrival at Madrid,

were wont to hire Spanish servants; and this was the means of turning his house into a register office. The

first who offered was a lad of so mortified and devotional an aspect, that I would have nothing to say to him;

he put me in mind of Ambrose de Lamela. I am quite out of conceit, said I to Ferrero, with these pious

I had scarcely turned virtue in a livery out of doors, when another came upstairs. This seemed to be a good

sprightly fellow, with as little mock modesty as if he had been bred at court, and a certain something about

him which indicated that he did not carry principle to any dangerous excess. He was just to my mind. His

answers to my questions were pat and to the purpose: he evinced a talent for intrigue beyond my most

sanguine hopes. This was exactly the subject for my purpose; so I fixed him at once. Neither had I any reason

to repent of my bargain; for it was very soon evident that further off I must have fared worse. As the duke had

allowed me to solicit on behalf of my friends, and it was my design to push that permission to the utmost, a

staunch hound was necessary to put up the game; or in phrase familiar to dull capacities, an active chap, with

a turn for routing out and bringing to my market all palmtickling petitioners for the loaves and fishes of the

prime minister. This was just where Scipio shone most; for my servant's name was Scipio. He had lived last

with Donna Anna de Guevara, the Prince of Spain's nurse, where he had ample scope for the exercise of that

As soon as he became acquainted with my credit at court and the use to which I meant to put it, he took the

field like his great ancestors, and began the campaign without the loss of a day. Master, said he, a young

gentleman of Grenada is just come to Madrid; his name is Don Roger de Rada. He has been engaged in an

affair of honour which compels him to throw himself on the Duke of Lerma's protection, and he is well

disposed to come down handsomely for any grace and favour he may obtain. I have talked with him on the

subject. He had a mind to have made friends with Don Rodrigo de Calderona, whose influence had been

represented to him in magnificent terms: but I dissuaded him, by pointing out that secretary's method of

selling his good offices for more than their weight in gold; whereas, on the contrary, you would be satisfied

with any decent expression of gratitude for yours, and would even do the business for the mere pleasure of

doing it, if you were in circumstances to follow the bent of your own generous and disinterested temper. In

short, I talked to him in such a strain, that you will see the gentleman early tomorrow morning. How is all

this, Master Scipio? said I. You must have transacted a great deal of business in a short time. You are no

novice in backstairs influence. It is very strange that you have not feathered your own nest. That ought not

to surprise you at all, answered he. I love to make money circulate; not to hoard it up.

Don Roger de Rada came according to his appointment. I received him with a mixture of courtly plausibility

and ministerial pride. My worthy sir, said I, before I engage in your interests, I wish to know the nature of the

affair which brings you to court; because it may be such as to preclude me from speaking to the minister in

your favour. Give me, therefore, if you please, the particulars faithfully, and rest assured that I shall enter

warmly into your interests, if they are proper to be espoused by a man who moves in my sphere. My young

client promised to be sincere in his representation, and began his narrative in the following words.

DON ANASTASIO DE RADA, a gentleman of Grenada, was living happily in the town of Antequera, with

Donna Estephania his wife, who united every charm of person and mind with the most unquestionable virtue.

If her affection was lively towards her husband, his love for her was violent beyond all bounds. He was

naturally prone to jealousy; and though wantonness could never assume such a semblance as his wife's, his

thoughts were not quite at rest upon the subject. He was apprehensive lest some secret enemy to his repose

might make some attempt upon his honour. His eye was turned askance upon all his friends, except Don

Huberto de Hordales, who frequented the house without suspicion in quality of Estephania's cousin, and was

Don Huberto did actually fall in love with his cousin, and ventured to make his sentiments known, in

contempt of consanguinity and the ties of friendship. The lady, who was considerate, instead of making an

outcry which might have led to fatal consequences, reproved her kinsman gently, represented to him the

extreme criminality of attempting to seduce her and dishonour her husband, and told him very seriously that

This moderation only inflamed the seducer's appetite the more. Taking it for granted that, as a woman who

had been accustomed to save appearances, she only wanted to be more strongly urged, he began to adopt little

freedoms of more warmth than delicacy; and had the assurance one day to put the question home to her. She

repulsed him with unbridled indignation, and threatened to refer the punishment of his offence to Don

Anastasio. Her suitor, alarmed at such an intimation, promised to drop the subject; and Estephania in the

Don Huberto, a man totally devoid of principle, could not feel his passion to be foiled, without entertaining a

mean spirit of revenge. He knew the weak side of Don Anastasio's temper. This was enough to engender the

blackest design that ever scoundrel plotted. One evening as he was walking alone with this misguided

husband, he said with an air of extreme uneasiness: My dear friend, I can no longer live without unburdening

my mind; and yet I would be for ever silent, but that you value honour far above a treacherous repose. Your

acute feelings and my own, on points which concern domestic injuries, forbid me to conceal what is passing

in your family. Prepare to hear what will occasion you as much grief as astonishment. I am going to wound

I know what you mean, interrupted Don Anastasio, in the first bunt of agony; your cousin is unfaithful. I no

longer acknowledge her for my cousin, replied Hordales with impassioned vehemence; I disown her, as

unworthy to share my friend's embraces. This is keeping me too long upon the rack, exclaimed Don

Anastasio: say on, what has Estephania done? She has betrayed you, replied Don Huberto. You have a rival

to whom she listens in private, but I cannot give you his name; for the adulterer, under favour of impenetrable

darkness, has escaped the ken of those who watched him. All I know is, that you are duped: of that fact I am

well assured. My own share in the disgrace is a sufficient pledge of my veracity. Her infidelity must be

It is to no purpose, continued he, watching the successful impression of his discourse, it is to no purpose to

discuss the subject further. I perceive your indignation at the treacherous requital of your love, and your

thoughts all aiming at a just revenge. Take your own course. Heed not in what relation to you your victim

may stand: but convince the whole city that there is no earthly being whom you would not sacrifice to your

Thus did the traitor exasperate a too credulous husband against an innocent wife; depicting in such glowing

colours the infamy in which he would be plunged if he left the insult unpunished, as to heighten his anger

into madness. Behold Don Anastasio, with his mind completely overturned; as if goaded by the furies. He

returned homewards with the frantic design of murdering his ill fated wife. She was just going to bed when

he came in. He kept his passion under for a time, and waited till the attendants had withdrawn. Then,

unrestrained by the fear of vengeance from above, by the vulgar scorn which must recoil upon an honourable

family, by natural affection for his unborn child, since his wife was near her time, he approached his victim,

and said to her in a furious tone of voice: Now is your hour to die, wretch as you are! One moment only is

your own, which my relenting pity leaves you to make your peace with heaven. I would not that your soul

At these words he drew his dagger. Estephania, just speechless with terror, throwing herself at his feet,

besought him with uplifted hands and inarticulate agony, to tell her why he raised his arm against her life. If

In vain, in vain, replied the infuriated murderer; your treason is but too well proved. My information is not to

be contradicted: Don Huberto . . . . Ah! my lord, interrupted she with eager haste, you must hold your trust

aloof from Don Huberto. He is less your friend than you imagine. If he has said aught against my virtue,

believe him not. Restrain that infamous tongue, replied Don Anastasio. By appealing against Hordales, you

condemn yourself. You would ruin your relation in my esteem, because he is acquainted with your

misconduct. You would invalidate his evidence against you; but the artifice is palpable, and only whets my

appetite for vengeance. My dear husband, rejoined the innocent Estephania, while her tears flowed in

torrents, beware of this blind rage. If you follow its instigation, you will perpetrate a deed for which you will

hate yourself, when convinced of its injustice. In the name of heaven, compose your disordered spirits. At

least give me time to clear up your suspicions; you will then deal candidly by a wife who has nothing to

Any other than Don Anastasio would have been touched by her pleadings, and still more by her agonizing

affliction; but the barbarian, far from being softened, ordered the lady once again to recommend herself

briefly to mercy, and lifted his arm to strike the blow. Hold, inhuman as you are! cried she. If your love for

me is as if it had never been, if my lavish fondness in return is all blotted from your memory, if my tears have

no eloquence to disarm your hellish purpose, have some pity on your own blood. Launch not your frantic

hand against an innocent, who has not yet breathed this vital air. You cannot be its executioner without the

curse of heaven and earth. As for myself, I can forgive my murderer; but the butcher of his own child, think

Determined as Don Anastasio was to pay no attention to anything Estephania could say, he could not help

being affected by the frightful images these last words presented to his soul. Wherefore, as if apprehensive

lest nature should play the traitress to revenge, he hastened to make sure of his staggering resolves, and

plunged his dagger into her bosom. She fell motionless on the ground. He thought her dead; and on that

In the mean time, the unhappy victim of groundless suspicion was so stunned with the blow she had received,

as to remain for a short interval on the ground without any signs of life. Afterwards, coming to herself, she

brought an old female servant to her assistance by her plaints and lamentations. That good old woman,

beholding her mistress in so deplorable a state, waked the whole household and even the neighbourhood by

her cries. The room was soon filled with spectators. Surgical assistance was sent for. The wound was probed,

and pronounced not to be mortal. Their opinion turned out to be correct; for Estephania soon recovered, and

was in due time delivered of a son, not withstanding the cruel circumstances in which she had been placed.

That son, Signor Gil Blas, you behold in me: I am the fruit of that dreadful pregnancy.

Women, when chaste as ice, when pure as snow, seldom escape calumny: this plague, however, though

virtue's dowry, did not alight upon my mother. The bloody scene passed in common fame for the transport of

a jealous husband. My father, it is true, bore the character of a passionate man, prone to kindle into fury on

the slightest occasion. Hordales could not but suppose that his kinswoman must suspect him of having sown

wild fancies in the mind of Don Anastasio; so that he satisfied himself with this imperfect relish of revenge,

and ceased to importune her. But, not to be tedious, I shall pass over the detail of my education. Suffice it to

say, that my principal exercise was fencing, which I practised regularly in the most famous schools of

Grenada and Seville. My mother waited with impatience till I was of age to measure swords with Don

Huberto, that she might instruct me in the grounds of her complaint against him. In my eighteenth year she

submitted her cause to my arbitrement, not without floods of tears, and every symptom of the deepest

anguish. What must not a son feel, if he has the spirit and the heart of a son, at the sight of a mother in such

distressing circumstances? I went immediately and called out Hordales; our place of meeting was private as it

should be; we fought long and furiously; three of my thrusts took place, and I threw him to the ground, like a

Don Huberto, feeling his wound to be mortal, fixed his last looks upon me, and declared that he met his death

at my hands as a just punishment for his treason against my mother's honour. He owned that in revenge for

the pangs of despised love he had resolved on her ruin. Thus did he breathe his last, imploring pardon from

heaven, from Don Anastasio, from Estephania, and from myself. I deemed it imprudent to return home and

acquaint my mother of the issue; fame was sure to perform that office for me I passed the mountains, and

repaired to Malaga, where I embarked on board a privateer. My outside not altogether indicating cowardice,

We were not long before we went into action. Near the island of Alboutan, a corsair of Millila fell in with us,

on his return towards the African coast with a Spanish vessel richly laden, taken off Carthagena. We attacked

the African briskly, and made ourselves masters of both ships, with eighty Christians on board, going as

slaves to Barbary. Afterwards, availing ourselves of a wind direct for the coast of Grenada, we shortly arrived

While we were inquiring into the birthplace and condition of our rescued captives, a man about fifty, of

prepossessing aspect, fell under my examination. He stated himself, with a sigh, to belong to Antequera. My

heart palpitated, without my knowing why; and my emotion, too strong to pass unnoticed, excited a visible

sympathy in him. I avowed myself his townsman, and asked his family name. Alas! answered he, your

curiosity makes my sorrow flow afresh. Eighteen years ago did I leave my home, where my remembrance is

coupled with scenes of blood and horror. You must yourself have heard but too much of my story. My name

is Don Anastasio de Rada. Merciful heaven! exclaimed I, may I believe my senses? And can this be Don

Anastasio? Father! What is it you say, young man? exclaimed he in his turn, with surprise and agitation equal

to my own. Are you that illfated infant, still in its mother's womb, when I sacrificed her to my fury? Yes,

said I; none other did the virtuous Estephania bring into the world, after the fatal night when you left her

Don Anastasio stifled my words in his embraces. For a quarter of an hour we could only mingle our

inarticulate sighs and exclamations. After exhausting our tender recollections, and indulging in the wild

expression of our feelings, my father lifted his eyes to heaven, in gratitude for Estephania saved; but the next

moment, as if doubtful of his bliss, he demanded by what evidence his wife's innocence had been cleared. Sir,

answered I, none but yourself ever doubted it. Her conduct has been uniformly spotless. You must be

undeceived. Know that Don Huberto was a traitor. In proof of this I unfolded all his perfidy, the vengeance I

My father was less delighted at his liberty restored than at these happy tidings. In the forgetfulness of ecstacy,

he repeated all his former transports. His approbation of me was ardent and entire. Come, my son, said he, let

us set out for Antequera. I burn with impatience to throw myself at the feet of a wife whom I have treated so

unworthily. Since you have brought me acquainted with my own injustice, my heart has been torn by

I was too eager to bring together a couple so near and dear to me, not to expedite our journey as much as

possible. I quitted the privateer, and with my share of prizemoney bought two mules at Adra, my father not

choosing again to incur the hazard of a voyage. He found leisure on the road to relate his adventures, which I

inclined to hear as seriously as did the Prince of Ithaca the various recitals of the king his father. At length,

after several days, we halted at the foot of a mountain near Antequera. Wishing to reach home privately, we

You may guess my mother's astonishment at beholding a husband whom she had thought for ever lost; and

the almost miraculous circumstances of his restoration were a second source of wonder. He entreated

forgiveness for his barbarity with marks of repentance so lively, that she could not but be moved. Instead of

looking on him as a murderer, she only saw the man to whose will high heaven had subjected her; such

religion is there in the name of husband to a virtuous wife! Estephania had been so alarmed about me, that my

return filled her with rapture. But her joy on this account was not without alleviation. A sister of Hordales had

instituted a criminal prosecution against her brother's antagonist. The search for me was hot, so that my

mother, considering home as insecure, was painfully anxious about me. It was therefore necessary to set out

that very night for court, whither I come to solicit my pardon, and hope to obtain it by your generous

The gallant son of Don Anastasio thus closed his narrative; after which I observed, with a selfsufficient

physiognomy: It is well, Signor Don Roger; the offence seems to me to be venial. I will undertake to lay the

case before his excellency, and may venture to promise you his protection. The thanks my client lavished

would have passed in at one ear and out at the other, if they had not been backed by assurances of more

substantial gratitude. But when once that string was touched, every nerve and fibre of my frame vibrated in

unison. On the very same day did I relate the whole story to the duke, who allowed me to present the

gentleman, and addressed him thus: Don Roger, I have been informed of the duel which has brought you to

court; Santillane has laid all the particulars before me. Make yourself perfectly easy: you have done nothing

but what the circumstances of the case might almost warrant; and it is especially on the ground of wounded

honour, that his Majesty is best pleased to extend his grace and favour. You must be committed for mere

form's sake; but you may depend on it, your confinement shall be of short duration. In Santillane you have a

Don Roger paid his respectful acknowledgments to the minister, on whose pledge he went and surrendered

himself His pardon was soon made out, owing to my activity. In less than ten days, I sent this modern

Telemachus home, to say "how do you do?" to his Ulysses and Penelope; had he stood upon the merits of his

case without a protector, he might have whined out a year's imprisonment, and scarcely have got off at last.

My commission was but a poor hundred pistoles. It was no very magnificent haul; but I was not as yet a

THIS affair gave me a relish for my trade; and ten pistoles to Scipio by way of brokerage, whetted his

eagerness to start more game of the same sort. I have already done justice to his talents that way; he might as

modestly have appended "the great" to the tail of his name, as the most noted scoundrel of antiquity. The

second customer he brought me was a printer, who manufactured books of chivalry, and had made his fortune

by waging war against common sense. This printer had pirated a work belonging to a brother printer, and his

edition had been seized. For three hundred ducats I rescued his copies out of jeopardy, and saved him from a

heavy fine. Though this was a transaction beneath the prime minister's notice, his excellency condescended at

my request to interpose his authority. After the printer, a merchant passed through my hands; the occasion

was thus: A Portuguese vessel had been taken by a Barbary corsair, and retaken by a privateer from Cadiz.

Twothirds of the cargo belonged to a merchant at Lisbon, who, having claimed his due to no purpose, came

to the court of Spain in search of a protector, with sufficient credit to procure him restitution. I took up his

cause, and he recovered his property, deducting the sum of four hundred pistoles, paid to me in consideration

And now most surely the reader will call out to me at this place: Well said, good master Santillane! Make hay

while the sun shines. You are on the high road to fortune; push forward, and outstrip your rivals. Oh! let me

CH. IX. Gil Blas makes a large fortune in a short time, and behaves like other wealthy upstarts. 257

alone for that. I spy, or my eyes deceive me, my servant coming in with a new gull that he has just caught.

Even so! It is my very Scipio. Let us hear what he has to say. Sir, quoth he, give me leave to introduce this

eminent practitioner. He wants a licence to sell his drugs during the term of ten years in all the towns of the

Spanish monarchy, to the exclusion of all other quacks; in short, a monopoly of poisons. In gratitude for this

patent to thin mankind, he will present the donor with a gratuity of two hundred pistoles. I looked

superciliously, like a patron, at the mountebank, and told him that his business should be done. As lameness

and leprosy would have it, in the course of a few days I sent him on his progress through Spain, invested with

full powers to make the world his oyster, and leave nothing but the shell to his unpatented competitors.

Besides that my avarice outran my accumulating wealth, I had obtained the four boons just specified so easily

from his grace, as not to be mealy mouthed about asking for a fifth. The town of Vera, on the coast of

Grenada, wanted a governor; and a knight of Calatrava wanted the government, for which he was willing to

pay me one thousand pistoles. The minister was ready to burst with laughing, to see me so eager after the

scut. By all the powers! my friend Gil Blas, said he, you go to work tooth and nail! You have a most

inveterate itch to do as you would be done by. But mark me! When mere trifles stand between us, I shall not

stand upon trifles; but when governments or other places of real value are in question, you will have the

modesty to be content with half the fee for yourself and will account to me for the other half. It is

inconceivable at what expense I stand, and how it presses on my finances to support the dignity of my station;

for though disinterestedness looks vastly well in the eyes of the world, you are to understand between

ourselves that I have made a solemn vow against dipping into my private fortune. On this hint, arrange your

My master, by this discourse, relieving me from the fear of being troublesome, or rather egging me on to run

at the ring for every prize, made me still more worldlyminded than ever I had been before. I should not have

objected to circulating handbills, with an invitation to all candidates for places to apply on certain terms at

the secretary's office. My functions were here, Scipio's were there; and we met at the receipt of custom. My

client got the government of Vera for his thousand pistoles; and as our price was fixed, a knight of St James

met his brother of Calatrava in the market on an equal footing. But mere governors were paltry fish to fry; I

distributed orders of knighthood, and converted some good stupid burgesses into most insufferable gentry by

one stroke of the pen, and a lacing across the shoulders with a broadsword. The clergy, too, were not

forgotten in my charities. Lesser preferments were in my gift; everything up to prebendal stalls and collegiate

dignities. With regard to bishoprics and archbishoprics, Don Rodrigo de Calderona had the charge of our holy

religion. As church and state must always go together, supreme magistracies, commanderies, and

viceroyalties were all in his gift; whence the reader will naturally infer, that the upper offices were little better

tenanted than the lower ones; since the subjects on whom our election fell, establishing their pretensions on a

certain palpable criterion, were not necessarily and unavoidably either the cleverest or the best principled

people in the world. We knew very well that the wits and lampooners of Madrid made themselves merry at

our expense; but we borrowed our philosophy from misers, who hug themselves under the hootings of the

Isocrates was in the right to insinuate, in his elegant Greek expression, that what is got over the devil's back is

spent under his belly. When I saw myself master of thirty thousand ducats, and in a fair way to gain perhaps

ten times as much, it seemed to be a necessary of office to make such a figure as became the right hand of a

prime minister. I took a house to myself, and furnished it in the immediate taste. I bought an attorney's

carriage at second hand: he had set it up at the suggestion of vanity, and laid it down at the suggestion of his

banker. I hired a coachman and three footmen. Justice demands that old and faithful servants should be

promoted; I therefore invested Scipio with the threefold honour of valetdechambre, private secretary, and

steward. But the minister raised my pride to its highest pitch, for he was pleased to allow my people to wear

his livery. My poor little wits were now completely turned. I was little more in my senses than the disciples

of Porcius Latro, who, by dint of drinking cummin, having made themselves as pale as their master, thought

themselves every whit as learned; so I could scarcely refrain from fancying myself next of kin and

CH. IX. Gil Blas makes a large fortune in a short time, and behaves like other wealthy upstarts. 258

presumptive heir to the Duke of Lerma himself. The populace might take me for his cousin, and people who

knew better, for one of his bastards; a suspicion most flattering to my pride of blood.

Add to this, that after the example of his excellency, who kept a public table, I determined to give parties of

my own. Pursuant thereunto, I commissioned Scipio to find me out a professed cook, and he stumbled upon

one who might have dished up a dinner for Nomentanus, of drippingpan notoriety. My cellar was well

stored with the choicest wines. My establishment being now complete, I gave my housewarming. Every

evening some of the clerks in the public offices came to sup with me, and affected a sort of political high life

be lowstairs. I did the honours hospitably, and always sent them home half seas over. Like master like man!

Scipio, too, had his parties in the servants' hall, where he treated all his chums at my expense. But besides

that I felt a real kindness for that lad, he contributed to grease the wheels of my establishment, and was

entitled to have a finger in the dissipation. As a young man, some little licence was allowable; and the

ruinous consequences did not strike me at the time. Another reason, too, prevented me from taking notice of

it; incessant vacancies, ecclesiastical and secular, paid me amply in meal and in malt. My surplus was

increasing every day. Fortune's curricle seemed to have driven to my door, there to have broken down, and

One thing more was wanting to my complete intoxication, that Fabricio might be witness to my pomp. He

was most probably come back from Andalusia. For the fun of surprising him, I sent an anonymous note,

importing that a Sicilian nobleman of his acquaintance would be glad of his company to supper, with the day,

hour, and place of appointment, which was at my house. Nunez came, and was most inordinately astonished

to recognize me in the Sicilian nobleman. Yes, my friend, said I, behold the master of this family. I have a

retinue, a good table, and a strong box besides. Is it possible, exclaimed he with vivacity, that all this

opulence should be yours? It was well done in me to have placed you with Count Galiano. I told you

beforehand that he was a generous nobleman, and would not be long before he set you at your ease. Of course

you followed my wise advice, in giving the rein a little more freely to your servants; you find the benefit of it.

It is only by a little mutual accommodation, that the principal officers in great houses feather their nests so

I suffered Fabricio to go on as long as he liked, complimenting himself for having introduced me to Count

Galiano. When he had done, to chastise his ecstasies at having procured me so good a post, I stated at full

length the returns of gratitude with which that nobleman had recompensed my services. But, perceiving how

ready my poet was to string his lyre to satire at my recital, I said to him The Sicilian's contemptible

conduct I readily forgive. Between ourselves, it is more a subject of congratulation than of regret. If the count

had dealt honourably by me, I should have followed him into Sicily, where I should still be in a subordinate

capacity, waiting for dead men's shoes. In a word, I should not now have been hand in glove with the Duke of

Nunez felt so strange a sensation at these last words, that he was tonguetied for some seconds. Then

gulping. up his stammering accents like harlequin, Did I hear aright? said he. What! you hand in glove with

the prime minister. I on one side, and Don Rodrigo de Calderona on the other, answered I; and according to

all appearance, my fortunes will move higher. Truly, replied he, this is admirable. You are cut out for every

occasion. What an universal genius! To borrow an expression from the tenniscourt, you have a racket for

every ball; nothing comes amiss to you. At all events, my lord, I am sincerely rejoiced at your lordship's

prosperity. The deuce and all, Master Nunez! interrupted I; good now, dispense with your lords and lordships.

Let us banish such formalities, and live on equal terms together. You are in the right, replied he; altered

circumstances should not make strange faces. I will own my weakness; when you announced your elevation

you took away my breath; but the chill and the shudder are over, and I see only my old friend Gil Blas.

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of four or five clerks. Gentlemen, said I, introducing Nunez,

you are to sup with Signor Don Fabricio, who writes verses of impenetrable sublimity, and such prose as

CH. IX. Gil Blas makes a large fortune in a short time, and behaves like other wealthy upstarts. 259

would not know itself in the glass. Unluckily I was talking to gentry who would have had more

fellowfeeling with an Oran Outang than with a poet They scarcely condescended to look at him. In vain did

he pun, parody, rally, or rail to hit their fancies, for they had none. He was so nettled at their indifference, that

he assumed the poetic licence, and made his escape. Our clerks never missed him, but forgot at once that he

Just as I was going out the next morning, the poet of the Asturias came into my room. I beg pardon, said he,

for having cut your clerks so abruptly last night; but, to deal freely, I was so much out of my element, that I

should soon have played old chaos with them. Proud puppies, with their starch and selfimportant air! I

cannot conceive how a clever fellow like you can sit it out with such loutish guests. Today I will bring you

some of more life and spirit. I shall be very much obliged to you, answered I; your introduction is sufficient.

Exactly so, replied he. You shall have the feast of reason and the flow of soul. I will go forthwith and invite

them, for fear they should engage themselves elsewhere; for happy man be his dole who can get them to

Away went he; and in the evening, at suppertime, returned with six authors in his train, whom he presented

one after another with a set speech in their praise. According to his account, the wits of Greece and Italy were

nothing in comparison of these, whose works ought to be printed in letters of gold. I received this deputation

from the tuneful sisters very politely. My behaviour was even in the extravagance of good breeding; for the

republic of authors is a little monarchical in its demands upon our flattery. Though I had given Scipio no

express direction respecting the number of covers at this entertainment, yet knowing what a hungry and

voluptnous race were to be crammed, he had mustered the courses in more than their full complement.

At length supper was announced, and we fell to merrily. My poets began talking of their poems and

themselves. One fellow, with the most lyrical assurance, numbered up whole hosts of firstrate nobility and

highflying dames, who were quite enraptured with his muse. Another, though it was not for him to arraign

the choice which a learned society had lately made of two new members, could not help saying that it was

strange they should not have elected him. All the rest were much in the same story. Amid the clatter of knives

and forks, my ears were more discordantly dinned with verses and harangues. They each took it by turns to

give me a specimen of their composition. One languishes out a sonnet; another mouths a scene in a tragedy;

and a third reads a melancholy criticism on the province of comedy. The next in turn spouts an ode of

Anacreon, translated into most unanacreontic Spanish verse. One of his brethren interrupts him, to point out

the unclassical use of a particular phrase. The author of the version by no means acquiesces in the remark;

hence arises an argument, in which all the literati take one side or the other. Opinions are nearly balanced; the

disputants are nearly in a passion; as argument weakens, invective grows stronger; they get from bad to

worse; over goes the table, and up jump they to fistycuffs. Fabricio, Scipio, my coachman, my footman, and

myself, have scarcely lungs or strength to bring them to their senses. The moment the battle was over, off

scampered they as if my house had been a tavern, without the slightest apology for their ill behaviour.

Nunez, on whose word I had anticipated a very pleasant party, looked rather blue at this conclusion. Well, my

friend, said I, what do you think of your literary acquaintance now? As sure as Apollo is on Parnassus, you

brought me a most blackguard set. I will stick to my clerks; so talk no more to me about authors. I shall take

care, answered he, not to invite any of them to a gentleman's house again; for these are the most select and

CH. X. The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue. 260

WHEN once my name was up for a man after the Duke of Lerma's own heart, I had very soon my court about

me. Every morning was my antechamber crowded with company, and my levees were all the fashion. Two

sorts of customers came to my shop; one set, to engage my interposition with the minister, on fair commercial

principles; the other set, to excite my compassion by pathetic statements of their cases, and give me a lift to

heaven on the packhorse of charity. The first were sure of being heard patiently and served diligently; with

regard to the second order, I got rid of them at once by plausible evasions, or kept them dangling till they

wore their patience threadbare, and went off in a huff. Before I was about the court my nature was

compassionate and charitable; but tenderness of heart is an unfashionable frailty there, and mine became

harder than any flint. Here was an admirable school to correct the romantic sensibilities of friendship: nor

was my philosophy any longer assailable in that quarter. My manner of dealing with Joseph Navarro, under

This Navarro, the founder of my fortune, to whom my obligations were thick and threefold, paid me a visit

one day. With the warmest expressions of regard such as he was in the habit of lavishing, he begged me to

ask the Duke of Lerma for a certain situation for one of his friends, a young man of excellent qualities and

undoubted merit, but incumbered with an inability of getting on in the world. I am well assured, added

Joseph, that with your good and obliging disposition, you will be enraptured to confer a favour on a worthy

man with a very slender purse; I am sure you will feel obliged to me for giving you an opportunity of

carrying your benevolent inclinations into effect This was just as good as telling me that the business was to

be done for nothing. Though such doctrine was not quite level to my capacity, I still affected a wish to do as

he desired. It gives me infinite pleasure, answered I to Navarro, to have it in my power to evince my lively

sense of all your former kindness to me. It is enough for you to take any man living by the hand; from that

moment he becomes the object of my unwearied care. Your friend shall have the situation you want for him;

nay, he has it already: it is no longer any concern of yours; leave it entirely to me.

On this assurance Joseph went away in high glee; nevertheless, the person he recommended had not the post

in question. It was given to another man, and my strong box was the stronger by a thousand ducats. This sum

was infinitely preferable to all the thanks in the world, so that I looked pitifully blank when next we met,

saying Ah, my dear Navarro! you should have thought of speaking to me sooner. That Calderona got the

start of me; he has given away a certain thing that shall be nameless. I am vexed to the soul not to meet you

Joseph was fool enough to give me credit, and we parted better friends than ever; but I suspect that he soon

found out the truth, for he never came near me again. This was just what I wanted. Besides that the memory

of benefits received grated harshly, it would not have been at all the thing for a person in my then sphere to

The Count de Lemos has been long in the background, let us bring him a little forwarder on the canvas. We

met occasionally. I had carried him a thousand pistoles, as the reader will recollect; and I now carried him a

thousand more, by order of his uncle the duke, out of his excellency's funds lying in my hands. On this

occasion the Count de Lemos honoured me with a long conference. He informed me that at length he had

completely gained his end, and was in unrivalled possession of the Prince of Spain's good graces, whose sole

confidant he was. His next concern was to invest me with a right honourable commission, of which he had

already given me a hint. Friend Santillane, said he, now is the time to strike while the iron is hot. Spare no

pains to find out some young beauty, worthy to while away the prince's amorous hours. You have your wits

about you; and a word to the wise is sufficient. Go; run about the town; pry into every hole and corner; and

when you have pounced upon anything likely to suit, you will come and let me know. I promised the count to

leave no stone unturned in the due discharge of my employment, which seemed to require no great force of

CH. X. The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue. 261

I had not hitherto been much practised in such delicate investigations, but it was more than probable that

Scipio had, and that his talent lay peculiarly that way. On my return home I called him in, and spoke thus to

him in private: My good fellow, I have a very important secret to impart. Do you know that in the midst of

fortune's favours, there is something still wanting to crown all my wishes? I can easily guess what that is,

interrupted he, without giving me time to finish what I was going to say; you want a little snug bit of

contraband amusement, to keep you awake of evenings, and rub off the dust of business. And, in fact, it is a

marvellous thing that you should have played the Joseph in the heyday of your blood, when so many

greybeards around you are playing the Elder. I admire the quickness of your apprehension, replied I with a

smile. Yes, my friend, a mistress is that something still wanting; and you shall choose for me. But I forewarn

you that I am nice hungry, and must have a pretty person, with more than passable manners. The sort of thing

that you require, returned Scipio, is not always to be met with in the market. Yet, as luck will have it, we are

in a town where everything is to be got for money, and I am in hopes that your commission will not hang

Accordingly within three days he pulled me by the sleeve: I have discovered a treasure! a young lady whose

name is Catalina, of good family and matchless beauty, living with her aunt in a small house, where they

make both ends meet by clubbing their little matters, and set the slanderous world at defiance. Their waiting

maid, a girl of my acquaintance, has given me to understand that their door, though barred against all

impertinent intruders, would turn upon its hinges to a rich and generous suitor, if he would only consent, for

fear of prying neighbours, not to pay his visits till after nightfall, and then in the most private manner

possible. Hereupon I magnified you as the properest gentleman in the world, and intreated piety in pattens to

offer your humble services to the ladies. She promised to do so, and to bring me back my answer tomorrow

morning at an appointed place. That is all very well, answered I; but I am afraid your goddess of bed

making has been running her rig upon you. No, no, replied he, old birds are not to be caught with chaff; I

have already made inquiry in the neighbourhood, and by the general report of her, Signora Catalina is a

Out of conceit as I was with the intrinsic value of ladies' favours, this was not to be scoffed at; and as our

Mercury in petticoats came the next day to tell Scipio that it only depended on me to be introduced that very

evening, I dropped in between eleven and twelve o'clock. The knowing one received me without bringing a

candle, and led me by the hand into a very neat apartment, where the two ladies were sitting on a satin sofa,

dressed in the most elegant taste. As soon as they saw me enter, they got up and welcomed me in a style of

such superior breeding, as would not have disgraced the highest rank. The aunt, whose name was Signora

Mencia, though with the remains of beauty, had no attractions for me. But the niece had a million, for she

was a goddess in mortal form. And yet, to examine her critically, she could not have been admitted for a

perfect beauty; but then there was a charm above all rules of symmetry, with a tingling and luxurious warmth

about her, that seized on men's hearts through their eyes, and prevented their brains from being too busy.

Neither were my senses proof against so dazzling a display. I forgot my errand as proxy, and spoke on my

own private individual account, with the enthusiasm of a raw recruit in the tender passion. The dear little

creature, whose wit sounded in my ears with three times its actual acuteness, under favour of her natural

endowments, made a complete conquest of me by her prattle. I began to launch out into foolish raptures,

when the aunt, to bring me to my bearings, led the conversation to the point in hand: Signor de Santillane, I

shall deal very explicitly with you. On the high encomiums I have heard of your character, you have been

admitted here, without the affectation of making much ado about trifles: but do not imagine that your views

are the nearer their termination for that. Hitherto I have brought my niece up in retirement, and you are, as it

were, the very first male creature on whom she has ever set eyes. If you deem her worthy of being your wife,

I shall feel myself highly honoured by the alliance: it is for you to consider whether those terms suit you; but

CH. X. The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue. 262

This was proceeding to business with a vengeance! It put little Cupid to flight at once: or else he was just

going to try one of his sharpest arrows upon me. But a truce with the Pantheon! A marriage so bluntly

proposed dispelled the fairy vision: I sunk back at once into the count's plodding agent; and changing my

tone, answered Signora Mencia thus: Madam, your frankness delights me, and I will meet it halfway.

Whatever rank I may hold at court, lower than the highest is too low for the peerless Catalina. A far more

brilliant offer waits her acceptance; the Prince of Spain shall be thrown into her toils. Surely it was enough to

have refused my niece, replied the aunt sarcastically; such compliments are sufficiently unpleasing to our sex;

it could not be necessary to make us your unfeeling sport. I really am not in so merry a mood, madam!

exclaimed I: it is a plain matter of fact; I am commissioned to look out for a young lady of merit sufficient to

engage the prince's heart, and receive his private visits; the object of my search is in your house, and here his

Signora Mencia could scarcely believe her cars; neither were they grievously offended. Nevertheless,

thinking it decent to be startled at the immorality of the proceeding, she replied to the following effect:

Though I should give implicit credit to what you tell me, you must understand that I am not of a character to

take pleasure in the infamous distinction of seeing my niece a prince's concubine. Every feeling of virtue and

of honour revolts at the idea . . . . What a simpleton you are with your virtue and honour! interrupted I. You

have not a notion above the level of a tradesman's wife. Was there ever anything so stupid as to consider

affairs of this kind with a view to their moral tendency? It is stripping them of all their beauty and excellence.

In the magic lanthorn of plenty, pleasure, and preferment, they appear with all their brightest gloss. Figure to

yourself the heir to the monarchy at the happy Catalina's feet; fancy him all rapture and lavish bounty; nor

doubt but that from her shall spring a hero, who shall immortalize his mother's name, by enrolling his own in

Though the aunt desired no better sport than to take me at my word, she affected not to know what she had

best do; and Catalina, who longed to have a grapple with the Prince of Spain, affected not to care about the

matter; which made it necessary for me to press the siege closer; till at length Signora Mencia, finding me

chopfallen and ready to withdraw my forces, sounded a parley, and agreed to a convention, containing the

two following articles. Imprimis, if the Prince of Spain, on the fame of Catalina's charms, should take fire,

and determine to pay her a nightly visit, it should be my care to let the ladies know when they might expect

him. Secondo, that the prince should be introduced to the said ladies as a private gentleman, accompanied

After this capitulation, the aunt and niece were upon the best terms possible with me: they behaved as if we

had known one another from our cradles; on the strength of which I ventured on some little familiarities,

which were not taken at all unkindly; and when we parted, they embraced me of their own accord, and

slabbered me over with inexpressible fondness. It is marvellous to think with what facility a tender

connection is formed between persons in the same line of trade, but of opposite sexes. It might have been

suspected by an eyewitness of my departure, in all the plenitude of warm and repeated salutation, that my

The Count de Lemos was highly delighted when I announced the longexpected discovery. I spoke of

Catalina in terms which made him long to see her. The following night I took him to her house, and he owned

that I had beat the bush to some purpose. He told the ladies, he had no doubt but the Prince of Spain would be

fully satisfied with my choice of a mistress, who, on her part, would have reason to be well pleased with such

a lover; that the young prince was generous, goodtempered, and amiable; in short, he promised in a few

days to bring him in the mode they enjoined, without retinue or publicity. That nobleman then took leave of

them, and I withdrew with him. We got into his carriage, in which we had both driven thither, and which was

waiting at the end of the street. He set me down at my own door, with a special charge to inform his uncle

next day of the new game started, not forgetting to impress strongly how conducive a good bag of pistoles

CH. X. The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue. 263

I did not fail on the following morning to go and give the Duke of Lerma an exact account of all that had

passed. There was but one thing kept back. I did not mention Scipio's name, but took credit to myself for the

discovery of Catalina. One makes a merit of any dirty work in the service of the great.

Abundant were the compliments paid me on this occasion. My good friend Gil Blas, said the minister with a

bantering air, I am delighted that with all your talents you have that besides of discovering kindhearted

beauties; whenever I have occasion for such an article, you will have the goodness to supply me. My lord,

answered I with mock gravity like his own, you are very obliging to give me the preference; but it may not he

unseasonable to observe that there would be an indelicacy in my administering to your excellency's pleasures

of this description. Signor Don Rodrigo has been so long in possession of that post about your person, that it

would be manifest injustice to rob him of it. The duke smiled at my answer; and then changing the subject,

asked whether his nephew did not want money for this new speculation. Excuse my negligence! said I; he

will thank you to send him a thousand pistoles. Well and good! replied the minister; you will furnish him

accordingly, with my strict injunction not to be niggardly, but to encourage the prince in whatever

I WENT to the Count de Lemos on the spur of the occasion, with five hundred double pistoles in my hand.

You could not have come at a better time, said that nobleman. I have been talking with the prince; he has

taken the bait, and burns with impatience to see Catalina. This very night he intends to slip privately out of

the palace, and pay her a visit; it is a measure determined on, and our arrangements are already made. Give

notice to the ladies, through the medium of the cash you have just brought; it is proper to let them know they

have no ordinary lover to receive; and a matter of course that generosity in princes should be the herald of

their partialities. As you will be of our party, take care to be in the way at bedtime: and as your carriage will

I immediately repaired to the ladies. Catalina was not visible, having just gone to lie down. I could only speak

with Signora Mencia. Madam, said I, forgive my appearance here in the day time, but there was no avoiding

it; you must know that the Prince of Spain will be with you tonight; and here, added I, putting my pecuniary

credentials into her hand, here is an offering which he lays on the Cytherean shrine, to propitiate the divinities

of the temple. You may perceive, I have not entangled you in a sleeveless concern. You have been

excessively kind indeed, answered she; but tell me, Signor de Santillane, does the prince love music? To

distraction, replied I. There is nothing he so much delights in as a fine voice, with a delicate lute

accompaniment So much the better, exclaimed she in a transport of joy; you give me great pleasure by saying

so; for my niece has the pipe of a nightingale, and plays exquisitely on the lute: then her dancing is in the

finest style! Heavens and earth! exclaimed I in my turn, here are accomplishments by wholesale, aunt; more

than enough to make any girl's fortune! Any one of those talents would have been a sufficient dowry.

Having thus smoothed his reception, I waited for the prince's bedtime. When it was near at hand, I gave my

coachman his orders, and went to the Count de Lemos, who told me that the prince, the sooner to get rid of

the people about him, meant to feign a slight indisposition, and even to go to bed, the better to cajole his

attendants; but that he would get up an hour afterwards, and go through a private door to a back staircase

Conformably with their previous arrangements, he fixed my station. There had I to beat the hoof so long, that

I began to suspect our forward sprig of royalty had gone another way, or else had changed his mind about

Catalina; just as if princes ever began to be fickle, till the goad of novelty and curiosity began to be blunted.

In short, I thought they had forgotten me, when two men came up. Finding them to be my party, I led the way

to my carriage, into which they both got, and I upon the coachbox to direct the driver, whom I stopped fifty

yards from the house, whither we walked. The door opened at our approach, and shut again as soon as we got

At first we were in absolute darkness, as on my former visit, though a small lamp was fixed to the wall on the

present occasion. But the light which it shed was so faint, as only to render itself visible without assisting us.

All this served only to heighten the romance in the fancy of its hero, fixed as he was in steadfast gaze at the

sight of the ladies as they received him in a saloon whose brilliant illumination was more dazzling, when

contrasted with the gloom of the avenue. The aunt and niece were in a tempting undress, where the science of

coquetry was displayed in all its luxury and absolute sway. Our prince could have been happy with Signora

Mencia, had the dear charmer Catalina been away; but as there was a choice, the younger, according to the

Well! prince, said the Count de Lemos, could you have desired a better specimen of beauty? They are both

enchanting, answered the prince, and my heart may as well surrender at once; for the aunt would arrest it in

its flight, if it attempted to sound a retreat from the niece's allsubduing charms.

After such compliments, as do not fall by wholesale to the share of aunts, he addressed his choicest terms of

flattery to Catalina, who answered him in kind. As convenient personages of my stamp are allowed to mingle

in the conversation of lovers, for the purpose of making fire hotter, I introduced the subject of singing and

playing on the lute. This was the signal of fresh rapture! and the nymph, the muse, the anything but mortal,

was supplicated to outtune the jingle of the spheres. She complied like a goodhumoured goddess; played

some tender airs, and sung so deliciously, that the prince flopped down on his knees in a tumult of love and

pleasure. But scenes like these are vapid in description: suffice it to say that hours glided away like moments

in this sweet delirium, till the approach of day warned the sober plotters of the lunacy to provide for their

patient's safety, and their own. When the parties were all snugly housed, we gave ourselves as much credit for

The next morning the Duke of Lerma desired to know all the particulars. Just as I had finished relating them,

the Count de Lemos came in and said The Prince of Spain is so engrossed by Catalina; he has taken so

decided a fancy to her, that he actually proposes to be constant. He wanted to have sent her jewels to the

amount of two thousand pistoles today, but his finances wee aground. My dear Lemos, said he, addressing

himself to me, you must absolutely get me that sum. I know it is very inconvenient; you have pawned your

credit for me already, but my heart owns itself your debtor; and if ever I have the means of returning your

kindness by more than empty words, your fortunes shall not suffer by your complaisance. In answer, I

assured him that I had friends and credit, and promised to bring him what he wanted.

There is no difficulty about that, said the duke to his nephew. Santillane will bring you the money; or, to save

trouble, he may purchase the jewels, for he is an admirable judge, especially of rubies. Are you not, Gil Blas?

This stroke of satire was of course designed to entertain the count at my expense, and it was successful, for

his curiosity could not but be excited to know the meaning of the mystery. No mystery at all, replied his uncle

with a broad laugh. Only Santillane took it into his head one day to exchange a diamond for a ruby, and the

Had the minister stopped there, I should have come off cheaply; but he took the trouble of dressing out in

aggravated colours the trick that Camilla and Don Raphael played me, with a most provoking enlargement of

the circumstances most to the disadvantage of my sagacity. His excellency having enjoyed his joke, ordered

me to attend the Count de Lemos to a jeweller's, where we selected trinkets for the Prince of Spain's

There can be little doubt of my kind reception on the following night, when I displayed a fine pair of drop

earrings, as the presents of my embassy. The two ladies, out of their wits at these costly tokens of the

prince's love, suffered their tongues to run into a gossiping strain, while they were thanking me for

introducing them into such worshipful society. In the excess of their joy, they forgot themselves a little. There

escaped now and then certain peculiar idioms of speech, which made me suspect that the party in question

was no such dainty morsel for royalty to feed upon. To ascertain precisely what degree of obligation I had

conferred on the heirapparent, I took my leave with the intention of coining to a right understanding with

ON coming home, I heard a devil of a noise, and inquired what was the meaning of it. They told me that

Scipio was giving a supper to halfadozen of his friends. They were singing as loud as their kings could

roar, and threatening the stability of the house with their protracted peals of laughter. This meal was not in all

The founder of the feast, informed of my arrival, said to his company: Sit still, gentlemen, it is only the

master of the house come home, but that need not disturb you. Go on with your merry making; I will but

just whisper a word in his ear, and be back again in a moment. He came to me accordingly. What an infernal

din! said I. What sort of company do you keep below? Have you, too, got in among the poets? Thank you for

nothing! answered he. Your wine is too good to be given to such gentry; I turn it to better account. There is a

young man of large property in my party, who wishes to lay out your credit and his own money in the

purchase of a place. This little festivity is all for him. For every glass he fills, I put on ten pistoles, in addition

to the regular fee. He shall drink till he is under the table. If that is the case, replied I, go to your

Then was no proper time to talk about Catalina; but the next morning I opened the business thus: Friend

Scipio, the terms we are upon entitle me to fair dealing. I have treated you more like an equal than a servant,

consequently you would be much to blame to cheat me on the footing of a master. Let us, therefore, have no

secrets towards each other. I am going to tell you what will surprise you; and you on your part shall give me

your sincere opinion about the two women with whom you have brought me acquainted. Between ourselves,

I suspect them to be no better than they should be; with so much the more of the knave in their composition,

because they affect the simpleton. If my conjecture be right, the Prince of Spain has no great reason to be

delighted with my activity; for I will own to you frankly, that it was for him I spoke to you about a mistress. I

brought him to see Catalina, and he is over head and ears in love with her. Sir, answered Scipio, you have

dealt so handsomely by me, that I shall act upon the square with you. I had yesterday a private inter view with

the abigail, and she gave me a most entertaining history of the family. You shall have it briefly, though it did

Catalina was daughter to a sort of gentleman in Arragon. An orphan at fifteen, with no fortune but a pretty

face, she lent a complying ear to an officer who carried her off to Toledo, where he died in six months,

having been more like a father than a husband to her. She collected his effects together, consisting of their

joint wardrobe and three hundred pistoles in ready money, and then went to housekeeping with Signora

Mencia, who was still in fashion, though a little on the wane. These sisters, every way but in blood, began at

length to attract the attention of the police. The ladies took umbrage at this, and decamped in dudgeon for

Madrid, where they have been living for these two years, without making any acquaintance in the

neighbourhood. But now comes the best of the joke: they have taken two small houses adjoining each other,

with a passage of communication through the cellars. Signora Mencia lives with a servant girl in one of these

houses, and the officer's widow inhabits the other, with an old duenna, whom she passes off for her

grandmother, so that her versatile child of nature is sometimes a niece brought up by her aunt, and sometimes

an orphan under her grandam's fostering wing. When she enacts the niece, her name is Catalina; and when

CH. XII. Catalina's real condition a worry and alarm to Gil Blas. His precautions for his own ease and quiet. 266

At the grating sound of Sirena I turned pale, and interrupted Scipio, saying What do you tell me? Alas! it

must be so: This cursed imp of Arragon is Calderona's charming Siren. To be sure she is, answered he, the

very same! I thought you would be delighted at the news. Quite the reverse, replied I. It portends more

sorrow than laughter; do not you anticipate the consequences? None of any ill omen, rejoined Scipio. What is

there to be afraid of? It is not certain that Don Rodrigo will rub his forehead; and in case any goodnatured

friend should show it him in the glass, you had better let the minister into the secret beforehand. Tell him all

the circumstances straightforward as they happened; he will see that there has been no trick on your part; and

if after that Calderona should attempt to do you an ill office with his excellency, it will be as clear as daylight

Scipio removed all my apprehensions by this advice, which I followed, in acquainting the Duke of Lerma at

once with this unlucky discovery. My aspect, while telling my tale, was sorrowful, and my tone faltering, in

evidence of my contrition for having unadvisedly brought the prince and Don Rodrigo into such close

quarters; but the minister was more disposed to roast his favourite than to pity him. Indeed, he ordered me to

let the matter take its own course, considering it as a feather in Calderona's cap to dispute the empire of love

with so illustrious a rival, and not to be worse used than his lawful prince. The Count de Lemos, too, was

informed how things stood, and promised me his protection, if the first secretary should come at the

Trusting to have secured the frail bark of my fortunes by this notable contrivance from the rocks and

quicksands that threatened it, my mind was once more at rest. I continued attending the prince on his visits to

Catalina, sirenlike in nature as in nickname, who was fertile in quaint devices to keep Don Rodrigo away

from next door, whenever the course of business required her to devote her nights to his royal competitor.

I MENTIONED some time ago, that in the morning there was usually a crowd of people in my

antechamber, coming to negotiate little private concerns in the way of politics; but I would never suffer

them to open their business by word of mouth; but adopting court precedent, or rather giving myself the airs

of a jack in office, my language to every suitor was Send in a memorial on the subject. My tongue ran so

glibly to that tune, that one day I gave my landlord the official answer, when he came to put me in mind of a

twelvemonth's rent in arrear. As for my butcher and baker, they spared the trouble of asking for their

memorials, by never giving me time to run up a bill. Scipio, who mimicked me so exactly, that only those

behind the scenes could distinguish the double from the principal performer, held his head just as high with

the poor devils who curried favour with him, as a step of the ladder to my ministerial patronage.

There was another foolish trick of mine, of which I do not by any means pretend to make a merit; neither

more nor less than the extreme assurance of talking about the first nobility, just as if I had been one of their

kidney. Suppose, for example, the Duke of Alva, the Duke of Ossuna, or the Duke of Medina Sidonia were

mentioned in conversation, I called them without ceremony, my friend Alva, that goodnatured fellow

Ossuna, or that comical dog Medina Sidonia. In a word, my pride and vanity had swelled to such a height,

that my father and mother were no longer among the number of my honoured relatives. Alas! poor

understrappers, I never thought of asking whether you had sunk or were swimming in the Asturias. A thought

about you never came into my head. The court has all the soporific virtues of Lethe, in the case of poor

My family was completely obliterated from the tablets of my memory, when one morning a young man

knocked at my door and begged to speak with me for a moment in private. He was shown into my closet,

CH. XIII. Gil Blas goes on personating the great man. He hears news of his family: a touch of nature on the occasion. A grand quarrel with Fabricio. 267

where, without asking him to take a chair, as he seemed to be quite a common fellow, I desired to know

abruptly what he wanted. How! Signor Gil Blas? said he, do you not remember me? It was in vain that I

perused the lines of his face over and over again; I was obliged to tell him fairly that he had the advantage of

me. Why, I am one of your old schoolfellows! replied he, bred and born in Oviedo; Bertrand Muscada, the

grocer's son, nextdoor neighbour to your uncle the canon. I recollect you as well as if it was but yesterday.

My youthful recollections, answered I, are very transient and confused. Blind man's buff and prison bars are

but childish amusement! The burden of state affairs leaves me little time to ruminate on the trifles of my

younger days. I am come to Madrid, said he, to settle accounts with my father's correspondent. I heard talk of

you! Folks say that you have, a good berth at court, and are already almost as well off as a Jew broker. I

thought I would just call in and say, how d'ye do? On my return into the country, your family will jump out of

It was impossible in decency to avoid asking how my father, my mother, and my uncle stood in the world;

but that duty was performed in so gingerly a manner, as to leave the grocer little room to compliment dame

Nature on her liberal provision of instinct. He seemed quite shocked at my indifference for such near kindred,

and told me bluntly, with his coarse shopman's familiarity, Methinks you might have shown more heartiness

and natural feeling for your kinsfolk! Why, you ask after them just as if they were vermin! Your father and

mother are still at service; take that in your dish! And the good canon, Gil Perez, eat up with gout,

rheumatism, and old age, has one foot in the grave. People should feel as people ought; and seeing that you

are in a berth to be a blessing to your poor parents, take a friend's advice, and allow them two hundred

pistoles a year. That will be doing a handsome thing, and making them comfortable, and then you may spend

the rest upon yourself with a good conscience. Instead of being softened by this family picture, I only

resented the officiousness of unasked advice. A more delicate and covert remonstrance might perhaps have

made its impression, but so bold a rebuke only hardened my heart. My sulky silence was not lost upon him,

so that while he moralized himself out of charity into downright abuse, my choler began to overflow. Nay,

then! this is too much, answered I, in a devil of a passion. Get about your business, Master Muscada, and

mind your own shop. You are a pretty fellow to preach to me! As if I were to be taught my duty by you.

Without further parley I handed the grocer out of my closet by the shoulder, and sent him off to weigh figs

The homestrokes he had laid on were not lost to my sober recollection. My neglect of filial piety struck

home to my heart, and melted me into tears. When I recollected how much my childhood was indebted to my

parents, what pains they had taken in my education, these affecting thoughts gave language for the moment to

the still small voice of nature and gratitude; but the language was never translated into solid sense and

service. An habitual callousness succeeded this transient sensation, and peremptorily cancelled every

obligation of humanity. There are many fathers besides mine, who will acknowledge this portrait of their

Avarice and ambition, dividing me between them, annihilated every trace of my former temper. I lost all my

gaiety, became absent and moping, in short, a most unsociable animal. Fabricio seeing me so furiously

bent on accumulation, and so perfectly indifferent to him, very rarely came to see me. He could not help

saying one day: In truth, Gil Blas, you are quite an altered man. Before you were about the court, you were

always pleasant and easy. Now you are all agitation and turmoil. You form project after project to make a

fortune, and the more you realize, the wider your views of aggrandizement extend. But this is not the worst!

You have no longer that expansion of heart, those open manners, which form the charm of friendship. On the

contrary, you wrap yourself round, and shut the avenues of your heart even to me. In your very civilities, I

detect the violence you impose upon yourself. In short, Gil Blas is no longer the same Gil Blas whom I once

CH. XIII. Gil Blas goes on personating the great man. He hears news of his family: a touch of nature on the occasion. A grand quarrel with Fabricio. 268

You really have a most happy talent for bantering, answered I, with repulsive jocularity. But this

metamorphose into the shag of a savage is not perceptible to myself. Your own eyes, replied he, are

insensible to the change, because they are fascinated. But the fact remains the same. Now, my friend, tell me

fairly and honestly, shall we live together as heretofore? When I used to knock at your door in the morning,

you came and opened it yourself; between asleep and awake, and I walked in without ceremony. Now, what a

difference! You have an establishment of servants. They keep me cooling my heels in your antechamber;

my name must be sent in before I can speak to you. When this is got over, what is my reception? A cold

inclination of the head, and the insolent strut of office. Any one would suppose that my visits were growing

troublesome! Can you suppose this to be treatment for a man who was once on equal terms with you? No,

Santillane, it can never be, nor will I bear it longer. Farewell! Let us part without ill blood. We shall both be

better asunder; you will get rid of a troublesome censor, and I of a purseproud upstart who does not know

I felt myself more exasperated than reformed by his reproaches; and suffered him to take his departure

without the slightest effort to overcome his resolution. In the present temper of my mind, the friendship of a

poet did not seem a catch of sufficient importance to break one's heart about its loss. I found ample amends in

the intimacy of some subaltern attendants about the king's person, with whom a similarity of humour had

lately connected me closely. These new acquaintance of mine were for the most part men from no one knows

where, pushed up to their appointments more by luck than merit. They had all got into warm berths; and,

wretches as they were, measuring their own consequence by the excess of royal bounty, forgot their origin as

scandalously as I forgot mine. We gave ourselves infinite credit for what told so much and bitterly to our

disgrace. O fortune! what a jade you are, to distribute your favours at haphazard as you do! Epictetus was

perfectly in the right, when he likened you to a jilt of fashion, prowling about in masquerade, and tipping the

ONE evening, on the departure of my supper company, finding myself alone with Scipio, I asked him what

he had been doing that day. Striking a masterstroke, answered he. I intend that you should marry. A

goldsmith of my acquaintance has an only daughter, and I mean to make up a match between you.

A goldsmith's daughter! exclaimed I with a disdainful air: are you out of your senses? Can you think of tying

me up to a trinketmaker? People of a certain character in society, and on a certain footing at court, ought to

have much higher views of things. Pardon me, sir! rejoined Scipio, do not take the subject up in that light.

Recollect that nobility accrues by the male side, and do not ride a higher horse than a thousand jockeys of

quality whom I could name. Do you know that the heiress in question will bring a hundred thousand ducats in

her pocket? Is not that a pretty little sprig of jewellery? To the resounding echo of so large a sum, my ears

were instantly symphonious. The day is your own, said I to the secretary; the fortune determines the case in

the lady's favour. When do you mean to put me in possession? Fair and softly, sir, answered he, the more

haste the worse speed. It will be necessary for me first to communicate the affair to the father, and instil the

advantage of it into his capacity. Good! rejoined I with a burst of laughter; is it thereabouts you are? The

match is far advanced in its progress towards consummation. Much nearer than you suppose, replied he. But

one hour's conversation with the goldsmith, and I pledge myself for his consent But, before we go any

further, let us come to an agreement, if you please. Supposing that I should transfer a hundred thousand

ducats to you, what would my commission be? Twenty thousand! was my answer. Heaven be praised

therefore! said he. I guessed your gratitude at ten thousand; so that it doubles mine in a similar case. Come on

then! I will set this negotiation on foot tomorrow morning; and you may count upon its success, or I am

In fact, he said to me two days afterwards, I have spoken to Signor Gabriel Salero, my friend the goldsmith.

On the loud report of your high desert and credit, he has lent a favourable ear to my offer of you for a

soninlaw. You are to have his daughter with a hundred thousand ducats, provided you can make it appear

clearly that you are in possession of the minister's good graces. Since that is the case, said I confidently to

Scipio, I shall soon be married. But, not entirely to forget the girl, have you seen her? is she pretty? Not quite

so pretty as her fortune, answered he. Between ourselves, this heiress's looks are as hard as her cash. Luckily,

you are perfectly indifferent about that. Stone blind, by the light of the sun, my good fellow! replied I. As for

us whimsical fellows about court, we marry merely for the sake of marrying. When we want beauty, we look

for it in our friends' wives; and if, by fates and destinies, the sweets are wasted on our own, their flavour is so

mawkish to our palate, that there is some merit in their not carrying the commodity to a foreign market.

This is not all, resumed Scipio: Signor Gabriel hopes for the pleasure of your company to supper this

evening. By agreement, there is to be no mention of marriage. He has invited several of his mercantile friends

to this entertainment, where you will take your chance with the rest, and tomorrow he means to sup with

you on the same terms. By this you will perceive his drift of looking before he leaps. You will do well to be a

little on your guard before him. Oh! for the matter of that, interrupted I with an air of confidence, let him

scrutinize me as closely as he pleases, the result cannot fail to be in my favour.

All this happened as it was foretold. I was introduced at the goldsmith's, who received me with the familiarity

of an old acquaintance. A vulgar dog, but warm; and as troublesome with his civility as a prude with her

virtue. He presented me to Signora Eugenia his wife, and the youthful Gabriela his daughter. I opened wide

my budget of compliments, without infringing the treaty, and prattled soft nothings to them, in all the vacuity

Gabriela, with submission to my secretary's better taste, was not altogether so repulsive; whether by dint of

being outrageously bedizened, or because I looked at her in the rareeshew box of her fortune. A charming

house this of Signor Gabriel! There is less silver, I verily believe, in the Peruvian mines, than under his roof.

That metal presented itself to the view in all directions, under a thousand different forms. Every room, and

especially that where we were entertained, was a fairy palace. What a bird's eye view for a soninlaw! The

old codger, to do the thing genteelly, had collected five or six merchants about him, all plodding

spiritwearing personages. Their tongues could only talk of what their hearts were set upon; it was high

Next night, it was my turn to treat the goldsmith. Not being able to dazzle him with my sideboard, I had

recourse to another artifice. I invited to supper such of my friends as made the finest figure at court;

hangerson of state noted for the unwieldiness of their ambition. These fellows could not talk on common

topics: the brilliant and lucrative posts at which they aimed were all canvassed in detail; this too made its

way. Poor countinghouse Gabriel, in amazement at the loftiness of their ideas, shrunk into insignificance, in

spite of all his hoards, on a comparison with these wonderful men. As for me, in all the plausibility of

moderation, I professed to wish for nothing more than a comfortable fortune; a snug box and a competence:

whereupon these gluttons of the loaves and fishes cried out with one voice that I was wrong, absolutely

criminal; for the prime minister would do anything upon earth for me, and it was an act of duty to anoint my

fingers with birdlime. My honoured papa lost not a word of all this; and seemed, at going away, to take his

Scipio went of course the next morning, to ask him how he liked me. Extremely well indeed, answered the

knight of the ledger; the lad has won my very heart. But, good master Scipio, I conjure you by our long

acquaintance to deal with me as a true friend. We have all our weak side, as you well know. Tell me where

Signor de Santillane is fallible. Is he fond of play? does he wench? On what lay are his snug little vices? Do

not fight shy, I beset you. It is very unkind, Signor Gabriel, to put such a question, retorted the gobetween.

Your interest is more to me than my master's. If he had any slippery propensities, likely to make your

daughter unhappy, would I ever have proposed him as a son inlaw? The deuce a bit! I am too much at your

service. But, between ourselves, he has but one fault; that of being faultless. He is too wise for a young man.

So much the better, replied the goldsmith; he is the more like me. You may go, my friend, and tell him he

shall have my daughter, and should have her though he knew no more of the minister than I do.

As soon as my secretary had reported this conversation, I flew to thank Salero for his partiality. He had

already told his mind to his wife and daughter, who gave me to understand by their reception, that they

yielded without disgust. I carried my fatherinlaw to the Duke of Lerma, whom I had informed the evening

before, and presented him with due ceremony. His excellency gave him a most gracious reception, and

congratulated him on having chosen a man for his soninlaw, for whom he himself had so great a regard,

and meant to do such great things. Then did he expatiate on my good qualities, and, in fact, said so much to

my honour, that honest Gabriel thought he had met with the best match in Spain. His joy oozed out at his

eyes. On parting, he pressed me in his arms, and said: My son, I am so impatient to see you Gabriela's

LET us leave my marriage to take care of itself for a season. The order of events requires me to recount a

service rendered to my old master Don Alphonso. I had entirely forgotten that gentleman's existence; but a

The government of Valencia became vacant at this time; and put me in mind of Don Alphonso de Leyva. I

considered within myself that the employment would suit him to a nicety; and determined to apply for it on

his be half, not so much out of friendship as ostentation. If I could but procure it for him, it would do me

infinite honour. I told the Duke of Lerma that I had been steward to Don Caesar de Leyva and his son; and

that having every reason in the world to feel myself obliged to them, I should take it as a favour if he would

give the government of Valencia to one or other of them. The minister answered: Most willingly, Gil Blas. I

love to see you grateful and generous. Besides, the family stands very high in my esteem. The Leyvas are

loyal subjects; so that the place cannot be better bestowed. You may take it as a wedding present, and do

Delighted at the success of my application, I went to Calderona in a prodigious hurry, to get the patent made

out for Don Alphonso. There was a great crowd, waiting in respectful silence till Don Rodrigo should come

and give audience. I made my way through, and the closet door opened as if by sympathy. There were no one

knows how many military and civil officers, with other people of consequence, among whom Calderona was

dividing his attentions. His different reception of different people was curious. A slight inclination of the

head was enough for some; others he honoured with a profusion of courtly grimace, and bowed than out of

the closet. The proportions of civility were weighed to a scruple. On the other hand, there were some suitors

who, shocked at his cold indifference, cursed in their secret soul the necessity for their cringing before such a

monkey of an idol. Others, on the contrary, were laughing in their sleeve at his gross and selfsufficient air.

But the scene was thrown away upon me; nor was I likely to profit by such a lesson. It was exactly the

counterpart of my own behaviour: and I never thought of ascertaining whether my deportment was popular or

Don Rodrigo accidentally casting a look towards me, left a gentleman, to whom he was speaking, without

ceremony, and came to pay his respects with the most unaccountable tokens of high consideration. Ah, my

CH. II. In the progress of political vacancies, Gil Blas recollects that there is such a man in the world as Don Alphonso de Leyva; and renders him a service from motives of vanity. 271

dear colleague! exclaimed he, what occasion procures me the pleasure of seeing you here! Is there anything

we can do for you? I told him my business; whereupon he assured me, in the most obliging terms, that the

affair should be expedited within fourandtwenty hours. Not satisfied with these overwhelming

condescensions, he conducted me to the door of his antechamber, whither he never attended any but the

What is the meaning of all this palaver? said I while retreating; has any raven croaked my entrance, and

prophesied promotion to Calderona by my overthrow? Does he really languish for my friendship? or does he

feel the ground giving way under his feet, and wish to save himself by clinging to the branches of my favour

and protection? It seemed a moot point, which of these conjectures might be the right. The following day, on

my return, his behaviour was of the same stamp; caresses and civilities poured in upon me in torrents. It is

true that other people who attempted to speak to him, were ramped in exact proportion with the

blandishments of his face towards me. He snarled at some, petrified others, and made the whole circle run the

gauntlet of his displeasure. But they were all amply avenged by an occurrence, the relation of which may give

A man very plainly dressed, and certainly not looking at all like what he was, came up to Calderona and

spoke to him about a memorial, stated to have been presented by himself to the Duke of Lerma. Don Rodrigo,

without looking from his clothes up to his face, said in a sharp, ungracious tone Who may you happen to

be, honest man? They called me Francillo in my childhood, answered the stranger unabashed; my next style

and title was that of Don Francillo de Zuniga; and my present name is the Count de Pedrosa. Calderona was

all in a twitter at this discovery, and attempted to stammer out an excuse, when he found that he had to do

with a man of the first quality. Sir, said he to the Count, I have to beg you, ten thousand pardons; but not

knowing whom I had the honour to . . . . I want none of your apologies, interrupted Francillo with proud

indignation; they are as nauseous as your rudeness was unbecoming. Recollect henceforth, that a minister's

secretary ought to receive all descriptions of people with good manners. You may be vain enough to affect

the representative of your master, but the public know you for his menial servant.

The haughty Don Rodrigo blushed blue at this rebuke. Yet it did not mend his manners one whit. On me it

made a salutary impression. I determined to take care and ascertain the rank of my petitioners, before I gave a

loose to the insolence of office, and to inflict torture only upon mutes. As Don Alphonso's patent was made

out, I sent it by a purpose messenger, with a letter from the Duke of Lerma, announcing the royal favour. But

I took no notice of my own share in the appointment, nor even accompanied it with a line, in the fond hope of

announcing it by word of mouth, and surprising him agreeably, when he came to the court on occasion of

AND now once more for my lovely Gabriela! We were to be married in a week. Preparations were making on

both sides for the ceremony. Salero ordered a rich wardrobe for the bride, and I hired a waitingwoman for

her, a footman, and a gentleman usher of decent aspect and advanced years. The whole establishment was

provided by Scipio, who longed more longingly than myself for the hour when we were to be fingering the

On the evening before the happy day, I was supping with my fatherinlaw, the rest of the company being

made up of uncles, aunts, and cousins of either sex and every degree. The part of a supplevisaged

soninlaw sat upon me to perfection. Nothing could exceed my profound respect for the goldsmith and his

wife, or the transports of my passion at Gabriela's feet, while I smoothed my way into the graces of the

family, by listening with impregnable patience to their witless repartees and irrational ratiocinations. Thus did

CH. III. Preparations for the marriage of Gil Blas. A spoke in the wheel of Hymen. 272

I gain the great end of all my forbearance, the pleasure of pleasing my new relations. Every individual of the

The repast ended, the company moved into a large room, where we were entertained with a concert of vocal

and instrumental music, not the worst that was ever heard, though the performers were not selected from the

choicest bands at Madrid. Some lively airs put us in mind of dancing. Heaven knows what sort of performers

we must have been, when they took me for the Coryphaeus of the opera, though I never had but two or three

lessons from a petty dancingmaster, who taught the pages on the establishment of the Marchioness de

Chaves. After we had tired our tendons, it was time to think of going home. There was no end of my bows

and God blessyou's. Farewell, my dear soninlaw, said Salero as he squeezed my hand, I shall be at your

house in the morning with the portion in ready money. You will be welcome, come when you list, my dear

fatherinlaw, answered I. Afterwards, wishing the family good night, I jumped into my carriage, and

Scarcely had I got two hundred yards from Signor Gabriel's house, when fifteen or twenty men, some on foot

and some on horseback, all with swords and firearms, surrounded and stopped the coach, crying out, In the

name of our sovereign lord the king. They dragged me out by main force, and thrust me into a hackchaise,

when the leader of the party got in with me, and ordered the driver to go for Segovia. There could be no

doubt but the honest gentle man by my side was an alguazil. I wanted to know something about the cause of

my arrest, but he answered in the language of those gentry, which is very bad language, that he had other

things to do than to satisfy my impertinent curiosity. I suggested that he might have mistaken his man. No,

no, retorted he, the fool is wiser than that. You are Signor de Santillane; and in that case you are to go along

with me. Not being able to deny that fact, it became an act of prudence to hold my tongue. For the remainder

of the night we traversed Mancanarez in sulky silence, changed horses at Colmenar, and arrived the next

THEIR first favour was to clap me up in a cell, where they left me on the straw like a criminal, whose only

earthly portion was to con over his dying speech in solitude. I passed the night, not in bewailing my fate, for

it had not yet presented itself in all its aggravation, but in endeavouring to divine its cause. Doubtless it must

have been Calderona's handiwork. And yet though his branching honours might have pressed thick upon his

senses, I could not conceive how the Duke of Lerma could have been induced to treat me so inhumanly.

Sometimes I apprehended my arrest to have been without his excellency's knowledge; at other times I thought

him the contriver of it, for some political reasons, such as weigh with ministers when they sacrifice their

My mind was vibrating to and fro with these various conjectures, when the dawn peeping in at my little

grated window, presented to my sight all the horror of the place where I was confined. Then did I vent my

sorrows without ceasing, and my eyes became two springs of tears, flowing inexhaustibly at the remembrance

of my prosperous state. Pending this paroxysm of grief, a turnkey brought me my day's allowance of bread

and water. He looked at me, and on the contemplation of my tearbesprinkled visage, gaoler as he was, there

came over him a sentiment of pity: Do not despair, said he. This life is full of crosses, but mind them not.

You are young; after these days, you will live to see better. In the meantime, eat at the king's mess, with what

My comforter withdrew with this quaint invitation, answered by my groans and tears. The rest of the day was

spent in cursing my wayward destiny, without thinking of my empty stomach. As for the royal morsel, it

seemed more like the message of wrath than the boon of benevolence; the tantalizing protraction of pain,

CH. IV. The treatment of Gil Blas in the tower of Segovia. The cause of his imprisonment. 273

Night came, and with it the rattle of a key in my keyhole. My dungeon door opened, and in came a man with

a waxlight in his hand. He advanced towards me, saying Signor Gil Blas, behold in me one of your old

friends. I am Don Andrew de Tordesillas, in the Archbishop of Grenada's service while you enjoyed that

prelate's favour. You may recollect engaging his interest in my behalf, and thereby procuring me a post in

Mexico; but instead of embarking for the Indies, I stopped in the town of Alicant. There I married the

governor's daughter, and by a series of adventures of which you shall hereafter have the particulars, I am now

warden of this tower. It is expressly forbidden me to let you speak to any living soul, to give you any better

bed than straw, or any other sustenance than bread and water. But besides that your misfortunes interest my

humanity, you have done me service, and gratitude countervails the harshness of my orders. They think to

make me the instrument of their cruelty, but it is my better purpose to soften the rigour of your captivity. Get

Though my humane keeper was entitled to some acknowledgment, my spirits were so affected as to interdict

my speech. All I could do was to attend him. We crossed a court, and mounted a narrow staircase to a little

room at the top of the tower. It was no small surprise, on entering, to find a table with lights on it, neatly set

out with covers for two. They will serve up immediately, said Tordesillas. We are going to sup together. This

snug retreat is appointed for your lodging; it will agree better with you than your cell. From your window you

will look down on the flowery banks of the Er�ma, and the delicious vale of Coca, bounded by the mountains

which divide the two Castiles. At first you will care little for prospects; but when time shall have softened

your keener sensations into a composed melancholy, it will be a pleasure to feast your eyes on such engaging

scenes. Then, as for linen and other necessaries befitting a man accustomed to the comforts of life, they shall

be always at your service. Your bed and board shall be such as you could wish, with a plentiful supply of

My spirits were a little tranquillized by these obliging offers. I took courage and returned my best thanks,

assuring him that his generous conduct restored me to life, and that I hoped at some time or other to find an

opportunity of testifying my gratitude. To be sure! and why should you not? answered he. Did you fancy

yourself a prisoner for life? Nothing less likely! and I would lay a wager that you will be released in a very

few months. What say you, Signor Don Andrew? exclaimed I. Then surely you are acquainted with the

occasion of my misfortune. You guess right, replied he. The alguazil who brought you hither told me the

whole story in confidence. The king, hearing that the Count de Lemos and you were in the habit of escorting

the Prince of Spain by night to a house of suspicious character, as a punishment for your loose morals, has

banished the count, and sent you hither, to be treated in the style of which you have had a specimen. And

how, said I, did that circumstance come to the king's knowledge? That is what I am most curious to ascertain.

And that, answered he, is precisely what the alguazil did not tell, apparently because he did not know.

At this epoch of our conversation, the servants brought in supper. When everything was set in order,

Tordesillas sent away the attendants, not wishing our conversation to be overheard. He shut the door, and we

took our seats opposite to each other. Let us say grace, and fall to, said he. Your appetite ought to be good

after two days of fasting. Under this impression he loaded my plate as if he had been cramming the craw of a

starveling. In fact, nothing was more likely than that I should play the devil among the ragouts; but what is

likely does not always happen. Though my intestines were yearning for support, their staple stuck in my

throat, for my heart loathed all pleasurable indulgence in the present state of my affairs. In vain did my

warden, to drive away the blue devils, pledge me continually, and expatiate on the excellence of his wine;

imperishable nectar would have been pricked according to the fastidious report of my palate. This being the

case, he went another way to work, and told me the story of his marriage, with as much humour as such a

subject would admit. Here he was still less successful. So wandering was my attention, that before the end I

had forgotten the beginning and the middle. At length he was convinced that there was no diverting my

gloomy thoughts for that evening. After finishing his solitary supper, he rose from table, saying: Signor de

CH. IV. The treatment of Gil Blas in the tower of Segovia. The cause of his imprisonment. 274

Santillane, I shall leave you to your repose, or rather to the free indulgence of your own reveries. But, take

my word for it, your misfortune will not be of long continuance. The king is naturally good. When his anger

shall have passed away, and your deplorable estate shall occur to his milder thoughts, your punishment will

appear sufficient in his eyes. With these words, my kind hearted gaoler went downstairs, and sent the

servants to take away. Not even the brass candlesticks were left behind; and I went to bed by the palpable

Two hours at least were my thoughts employed on what Tordesillas had told me. Here, then, am I, for having

lent myself to the pleasures of the heirapparent! It was certainly not having my wits about me, to pander for

so young a prince. Therein consists my crime; had he been arrived at a more knowing age, the king perhaps

might only have laughed at what has now made him so angry. But who can have given such counsel to the

monarch, without dreading the prince's resentment or the Duke of Lerma's? That minister will doubtless take

ample vengeance for his nephew the Count de Lemos. How can the king have made the discovery? That is

This last was the eternal burden of my song. But the idea most afflictive to my mind, what drove me to

despair, and laid fiend like hold upon my fancy, was the unquestioned plunder of my effects. My strong

box, exclaimed I, my dear wealth, what is become of you? Into what hands have you fallen? Alas! you are

lost in less time than you were gained! The ruinous confusion of my household was the perpetual

death'shead of my imagination. Yet this wilderness of melancholy ideas sheltered me from absolute

distraction: sleep, which had shunned my wretched straw, now paid his readier visit to my soft and gentle

manly couch. Watching and wine, too, imparted a strong narcotic to his poppies. My slumbers were

profound; and to all appearance, the day might have peeped in upon my repose, if I had not been awakened

all at once by such sounds as rarely perforate a prison wall. I heard the thrum of a guitar, accompanying a

man's voice. My whole attention was absorbed; but the invisible musician paused, and left the fleeting

impression of a dream. An instant after wards, my ear was soothed with the sound of the same instrument,

Wisely the ant against poor winter hoards The stock which summer's wealth affords; In grasshoppers, that

Of love or fortune the deceitful light Might half excuse our cheated sight, If it of life the whole small time

[To have substituted, with a slight variation, these two stanzas from Cowley for a translation of the

commonplace couplet in the original, will probably not be thought to require any apology. They necessarily

These verses, which sounded as if they had been sung expressly for the dirge of my departed happiness, were

only an aggravation of my feelings. The truth of the sentiment, said I, is but too well exemplified in me. The

meteor of court favour has but plunged me in substantial darkness; the summer sunshine of ambition is

quenched in these autumnal glooms. Now did I sink again into cold and comfortless meditation; my miseries

began to flow afresh, as if they fed and grew upon their own vital stream. Yet my wailings ended with the

night; and the first rays which played upon my chamber wall amused my mind into composure. I got up to

open my window, and let the vivid air of morning into my room. Then I glanced over the country, so

attractively depicted in the description of my keeper. It did not seem to justify his panegyric. The Er�ma, a

second Tagus in my magnifying fancy, was little better than a brook. Its flowery banks were fringed with

CH. V. His reflections before he went to sleep that night, and the noise that waked him. 275

nettles, and arrayed in all the majesty of thistles; the delicious vale in this fairy prospect was a barren

wilderness, untamed by human labour. It therefore was very evident that my keener sensations were not yet

softened into such a composed melancholy, as could give any but a jaundiced colouring to the landscape.

I began dressing, and had already half finished my toilet, when Tordesillas ushered in an old chambermaid,

laden with shirts and towels. Signor Gil Blas, said he, here is your linen. Do not be saving of it; there shall

always be as many changes as you can possibly want. Well now! and how have you passed the night? Has the

drowsy god administered his anodyne? I could have slept till this time, answered I, if I had not been

awakened by a voice singing to a guitar. The cavalier who has disturbed your repose, resumed he, is a state

prisoner; and his chamber is contiguous to yours. He is a knight of the military order of Calatrava, and is a

very accomplished person. His name is Don Gaston de Cogollos. You may meet as often as you like, and take

your meals together. It will afford reciprocal consolation to compare your fortunes. There can be no doubt of

your being agreeable to one another. I assured Don Andrew how sensible I was of his indulgence in allowing

me to blend my sorrows with those of my fellowsufferer; and, as I betrayed some impatience to be

acquainted with him, our accommodating warden met my wishes on the very same day. He fixed me to dine

with Don Gaston, whose prepossessing physiognomy and symmetry of feature struck me sensibly. Judge

what it must have been, to make so strong an impression on eyes accustomed to encounter the dazzling

exterior of the court. Figure to yourself a man fashioned in the mould of pleasure; one of those heroes in

romance, who has only to shew his face, and banish the sweet sleep from the eyelids of princesses. Add to

this, that nature, who is generally bountiful with one hand and niggardly with the other, had crowned the

perfections of Cogollos with wit and valour. He was a man, whose like, take him for all in all, we might not

If this fine fellow was mightily to my taste, it was my good luck not to be altogether offensive to him. He no

longer sang at night for fear of annoying me, though I begged him by no means to restrain his inclinations on

my account. A bond of union is soon formed between brethren in misfortune. A close friendship succeeded to

mere acquaintance, and strengthened from day to day. The liberty of uninterrupted intercourse contributed

One day after dinner I went into his room, just as he was tuning his guitar. To hear him more at my ease, I sat

down on the only stool; while he, reclining on his bed, played a pathetic air, and sang to it a ditty, expressing

the despair of a lover and the cruelty of his mistress. When he had finished, I said to him with a smile, Sir

knight, such strains as these could never be applicable to your own successes with the fair. You were not

made to cope with female repulse. You think too well of me, answered he. The verses you have just heard

were composed to fit my own case; to soften a heart of adamant. You must hear my story, and in my story,

IT will be very soon four years since I left Madrid to go and see my aunt Donna Eleonora de Laxarilla at

Coria: she is one of the richest dowagers in Old Castile, with myself for her only heir. Scarcely had I got

within her doors, when love invaded my repose. The windows of my room faced the lattice of a lady living

opposite: but the street was narrow, and her blinds pervious to the eye. It was an opportunity too delicious to

be lost; and I found my neighbour so lovely that my heart was captivated. The subject of my sentrywatch

could not be mistaken. She marked it well; but she was not a girl to glory in the detection, still less to

It was natural to inquire the name of this mighty conqueror. I learnt it to be Donna Helena, only daughter of

Don George de Galisteo, lord of a large domain near Coria. She had innumerable offers of marriage; but her

father repulsed them all, because he meant to bestow her hand on his nephew, Don Austin de Olighera, who

had uninterrupted access to his cousin while the settlements were preparing. This was no bar to my hopes: on

the contrary, it whetted my eagerness: and the insolent pleasure of supplanting a favoured rival was, perhaps,

at bottom equally my motive with a more noble passion. My visual artillery was obstinately planted against

my unyielding fair. Her attendant Felicia was not without the incense of a glance, to soften her rigid

constancy in my favour; while nods and becks stood for the current coin of language. But all these efforts of

gallantry were in vain the maid was impregnable like her mistress never was there such a pair of cold

The commerce of the eyes being so unthrifty, I had recourse to different agents. My scouts were on the watch

to hunt out what acquaintance Felicia might have in town. They discovered an old lady, by name Theodora,

to be her most intimate friend, and that they often met. Delighted at the intelligence, I went point blank to

Theodora, and engaged her by presents in my interest. She took my cause up heartily, promised to contrive an

I am no longer the wretch of yesterday, said I to Felicia, since my sufferings have melted you to pity. How

deep is my debt to your friend for her kind interference in my behalf. Sir, answered she, Theodora can do

what she pleases with me. She has brought me over to your side of the question; and if I can do you a

kindness, you shall soon be at the summit of your wishes; but, with all my partiality in your favour, I know

not how far my efforts may be successful. It would be cruel to mislead you: the prize will not be gained

without a severe conflict. The object of your passion is betrothed to another gentleman, and her character

most inauspicious to your designs. Such is her pride, and so closely locked are her secrets within her own

breast, that if, by constancy and assiduities, you could extort from her a few sighs, fancy not that her haughty

spirit would indulge your ears with their music. Ah! my dear Felicia, exclaimed I in an agony, why will you

thus magnify the obstacles in my way? To set them in array will kill me. Lead me on with false hopes, if you

will; but do not drive me to despair. With these words I took one of her hands, pressed it between mine, and

slid a diamond on her finger value three hundred pistoles, with such a moving compliment as made her weep

Such speeches and corresponding actions deserved some scanty comfort. She smoothed a little the rugged

path of love. Sir, said she, what I have just been telling you need not quite quench your hope. Your rival, it is

true, is in possession of the ground. He comes back and fore as he pleases, he toys with her as often as he

likes, but all that is in your favour. The habit of constant intercourse sheds a languor over their meetings.

They part without pain, and come together without emotion. One would take them for man and wife. In a

word, my mistress has no marks of violent love for Don Austin. Besides, in point of person, there is such a

difference between you and him as cannot fail to catch the eye of a nice observer like Donna Helena.

Therefore do not be cast down. Continue your particular attentions. You shall have a second in me. I shall let

no opportunity escape of pointing out to my mistress the merit of all your exertions to please her. In vain

shall she intrench herself behind reserve. In spite of guard and garrison, I will ransack the musterroll of her

Now were my open attacks and secret ambuscades more fiercely pointed against the daughter of Don George.

Among the rest, I entertained her with a serenade. After the concert Felicia, to sound her mistress, begged to

know how she had been entertained. The singer had a good voice, said Donna Helena. But how did you like

the words? replied the abigail. I scarcely noted them, returned the lady; the music engrossed my whole

attention. The poetry excited as little curiosity as its author. If that is the case, exclaimed the chambermaid,

poor Don Gaston do Cogollos is reckoning without his host; and a miserable spendthrift of his glances, to be

always ogling at our latticework. Perhaps it may not be he, said the mistress with petrifying indifference, but

some other spark, announcing his passion by this concert. Excuse me, answered Felicia, it is Don Gaston

himself who accosted me this morning in the street, and implored me to assure you how he adored, in

defiance of your rigorous repulses: but that he should esteem himself the most blest of mortals, if you would

allow him to soothe his desponding thoughts by all the most delicate and impassioned attentions. Judge now

Don George's daughter changed countenance at once, and said to her servant with a severe frown, You might

well have dispensed with the relation of this impertinent discourse. Bring me no more such idle tales; and tell

this young madman, when next he accosts you, to play off his shallow artifices on some more

accommodating fool; but, at all events, let him choose a more gentlemanly recreation than that of lounging all

This message was faithfully delivered at my next interview with Felicia, who assured me that her mistress's

modes of speech were not to be taken in their literal construction, but that my affairs were in the best possible

train. For my part, being little read in the science of coquetry, and finding no favourable sense on the face of

the author's original words, I was half out of humour with the wiredrawn comments of the critic. She

laughed at my misgiving, and asked her friend for pen, ink, and paper, saying: Sir knight of the doleful

countenance, write immediately to Donna Helena as dolefully as you look. Make echo ring with your

sufferings; outsigh the river's murmur; and, above all, let rocks and woods resound with the prohibition of

appearing at your window. Then pawn your existence on obeying her, though without the possibility ever to

redeem the pledge. Turn all that nonsense into pretty sentences, as you gay deceivers so well know how to

do, and leave the rest to me. The event, I flatter myself will redound more than you are aware to the honour of

He must have been a strange lover who would not have profited by so opportune an occasion of writing to his

mistress. My letter was couched in the most pathetic terms. Felicia smiled at its contents; and said, that if the

women knew the art of infatuating men, the men in return had borrowed their influence over women from the

arch wheedler himself. My privy counsellor took the note, and went back to Don George's, with a special

Madam, said she, going up to Donna Helena, I met Don Gaston. He must needs endeavour to come round me

with his flattering speeches. In tremulous accents, like a culprit pleading against his sentence, he begged to

know whether I had spoken to you on his behalf. Then, in prompt and faithful compliance with your orders, I

snapped up the words out of his mouth. To be sure, my tongue did run at a fine rate against him. I called him

all manner of names, and left him in the street like a stock, staring at my termagant loquacity. I am delighted,

answered Donna Helena, that you have disengaged me from that troublesome person. But there was no

occasion to have snubbed him so unmercifully. A creature of your degree should always keep a good tongue

in its mouth. Madam, replied the domestic, one cannot get rid of a determined lover by mincing one's words,

though it comes to much the same thing when one flies into a passion. Don Gaston, for instance, was not to

be bullied out of his senses. After having given it him on both sides of his ears, as I told you, I went on that

errand of yours to the house of your relation. The lady, as illluck would have it, kept me longer than she

ought. I say longer than she ought, because my plague and torment met me on my return. Who the deuce

would have thought of seeing him? It put me all in a twitter; but then my tongue, which at other times is apt

to be in a twitter, stuck motionless in my mouth. While my tongue stuck motionless in my mouth, what did

he do? He slid a paper into my hand without giving me time to consider whether I should take it or no, and

After this introduction, she drew my letter from under her stays, and gave it with half a banter to her mistress,

who affected to read it in humorous scorn, but digested the contents most greedily, and then put on the starch,

offended prude. In good earnest, Felicia, said she with all the gravity she could assume, you were extremely

off your guard, quite bewildered and fascinated, to have taken the charge of such an epistle. What

construction would Don Gaston put upon it? What must I think of it myself? You give me reason, by this

strange behaviour, to mistrust your fidelity, while he must suspect me of encouraging his odious suit. Alas!

he may, perhaps, lay that flattering unction to his soul, that my love is legible in these characters, and not his

trespass. Only consider how you lay my towering pride. Oh! quite the reverse, madam, answered the

petticoated pleader; it is impossible for him to think that; and if he did, he would soon be convinced with a

flea in his ear. I shall tell him, when next we meet, that I have delivered his letter, that you glanced at the

superscription with petrifying indifference, and then, without reading a word, tore it into ten thousand pieces.

You may swear that I did not read it with a safe conscience, replied Donna Helena. I should be puzzled to

retrace a single sentiment. Don George's daughter, not contented with these words, suited the action to them,

As I had promised no longer to play the lover at my window, the farce of obedience was kept up for several

days. Ogling being interdicted, my courtship was doomed to enter in at my Helena's obdurate ears. One night

I at tended under her balcony with musicians; the first bars of the serenade were already playing, when a

swaggering blade, sword in hand, rushed in upon our harmony, laying about him to the right and left, to the

utter discomfiture of the troop. Such mad warfare fired my tilting propensities to equal fury. The affray

became serious. Donna Helena and her maid were disturbed by the clash of swords. They looked out at their

lattice, and saw two men engaged. Their cries roused Don George and his servants. The whole

neighbourhood was assembled to part the combatants. But they came too late: on the field of battle, bathed in

his own blood and almost lifeless, lay my unfortunate body. They carried me to my aunt's, and sent for the

All the world was merciful, and wished me well, especially Donna Helena, whose heart was now unmasked.

Her forced severity yielded to her natural feelings. Would you believe it? The cold, relentless, insensible, was

kindled into the warmest of love's votaries. She wore out the remainder of the night in weeping with her

faithful confidante, and giving her cousin, Don Austin de Olighera, to perdition: for him they taxed with the

plotted massacre, and the bill was a true one. He could hide his heart as well as his cousin; he therefore

watched my motions, without seeming to suspect them; and fancying them not to be without a corresponding

impulse, he resolved not to be sacrificed with impunity. The accident was an awkward one to me, but it ended

in overpowering rapture. Dangerous as my wound was, the surgeons soon brought me about. I was still

confined to my chamber, when my aunt, Donna Eleonora, went over to Don George, and made proposals for

Donna Helena. He consented the more readily to the marriage, as he never expected to see Don Austin again.

The good old man was afraid of his daughter's not liking me, because cousin Olighera had kept her company;

but she was so tractable to the parental behest, as to furnish grounds for believing that in Spain, as in other

Felicia, at our first private meeting, communicated the emotions of her mistress on my misfortune. Now, like

another Paris, I thought Troy well lost for my Helen, and blessed the happy consequences of my wound. Don

George allowed me to speak with his daughter in presence of her attendant. What a heavenly interview! I

begged and prayed the lady so earnestly to tell me whether her sufferance of my vows was forced upon her

by her father, that she at length confessed her obedience to be in unison with her inclinations. After so

delicious a declaration, my whole soul was given up to love and pleasurable gratifications. Our nuptials were

to be graced by a magnificent procession of all the principal people in Coria and the neighbourhood.

I gave a splendid party at my aunt's countryhouse, in the suburbs on the side of Manroi. Don George, his

daughter, the family, and friends on both sides were present. There was a concert of vocal and instrumental

music, with a company of strolling players, to represent a comedy. In the middle of the festivities, some one

whispered me that a man wanted to speak with me in the hall. I got up from table to go and see who it was.

The stranger looked like a gentleman's servant. He put a letter into my hand, containing these words:

"If you have any sense of honour, as a knight of your order ought to have, you will not fail to attend

tomorrow morning in the plain of Manroi. There you will find an antagonist, ready to give you your revenge

for his former attack upon your person, or, what he rather hopes and meditates, to spoil your connubial

If love is a Spanish passion, revenge is the Spanish lunacy. Such a note as this was not to be read with

composure. At the mere subscription of Don Austin, there kindled in my veins a fire, which almost made me

forget the claims of hospitality. I was tempted to steal away from my company, and seek my antagonist on

the instant. For fear of disturbing the merriment, however, I bridled in my rage, and said to the messenger:

My friend, you may tell your employer that I shall meet him on the appointed spot at sunrise, and resume

After sending this answer, I resumed my seat at table with so composed a mien, that no creature had the least

suspicion of what had occurred. During the rest of the day, I gave myself up to the pleasures of the festival,

which ended not till midnight. The guests then returned to town, but I staid behind, under pretext of taking

the air on the following morning. Instead of going to bed, I watched for the dawn with maddening

impatience. With the first ray I got on horseback, and rode alone towards Manroi. On the plain was a

horseman, riding up to me at full speed. I pushed forward, and we met half way. It was my rival. Knight, said

he, superciliously, it is against my will that I meet you a second time on the same occasion, but you have

brought your fate on yourself. After the adventure of the serenade, you ought to have waived your pretensions

to Don George's daughter, or at least to have been assured that the support of them must cost you dearer than

a single encounter. You are too much elated, answered I, with an advantage which is less owing, perhaps, to

your superior skill, than to the darkness of the night. Remember, that victory is of the same blind family with

fortune. It shall be my lot to teach you, replied he with insulting scorn, that I have unsealed the eyes of both.

At this proud defiance, we both dismounted, tied our horses to a tree, and engaged with equal fury. I must

candidly acknowledge the prowess of my antagonist, who was a consummate master of fencing. My life was

exposed to the greatest possible danger. Nevertheless, as the strong is often vanquished by the weak, my

rival, in spite of all his science, received a thrust through the heart, and fell a lifeless corpse.

I immediately returned, and told a confidential servant what had happened, requesting him to take horse and

acquaint my aunt, before the officers of justice could get intelligence of the event. He was also to obtain from

her a supply of money and jewels, and then join me at the first inn as you enter Plazencia.

All this was performed within three hours. Donna Eleonora rather triumphed than mourned over a

catastrophe, which restored my injured honour; and sent me large remittances for my travels abroad, till the

Not to dwell on indifferent circumstances, suffice it to say, that I embarked for Italy, and equipped myself so

While I was endeavouring to beguile the weary hours of absence, Helena was weeping at home from the

same cause. Instead of joining in the family resentment, her heart was panting for a compromise, and for my

speedy return. Six months had already elapsed, and I firmly believe that her constancy would have been proof

against the track of time, had time been seconded by no more powerful ally. Don Blas de Combados, a

gentleman from the western coast of Galicia, came to Coria, to take possession of a rich inheritance

unsuccessfully contested by a near relation. He liked that country so much better than his own, that he made it

his principal residence. Combados was a personable man. His manners were gentle and wellbred, his

conversation most insinuating. With such a passport, he soon got into the best company, and knew all the

It was not long before he heard of Don George's daughter, and of her extraordinary beauty. This touched his

curiosity nearly; he was eager to behold so formidable a lady. For this purpose, he endeavoured to worm

himself into the good graces of her father, and succeeded so well, that the old gentleman, already looking on

him as a soninlaw, gave him free admission to the house, and the liberty of conversing with Donna Helena

in his presence. The Galician soon became deeply enamoured of her: indeed, it was the common fate of all

who had ever beheld her charms. He opened his heart to Don George, who consented to his paying his

addresses, but told him that so far from offering violence to her inclination, he should never interfere in her

choice. Hereupon Don Blas pressed every device that impassioned ingenuity could suggest into his service, to

melt and warm the icicles of reserve; but the lady was impenetrable to his arts, fast bound in the fetters of an

earlier love. Felicia, however, was in the new suitor's interest, convinced of his merit by the universal

argument. All the faculties of her soul were called forth in his cause. On the other hand, the father urged his

wishes and entreaties. Thus was Donna Helena tormented for a whole year with their importunities, and yet

Combados finding that Don George and Felicia took up his cause with very little success, proposed an

expedient for conquering prejudice to the following effect. We will suppose a merchant of Coria to have

received a letter from his Italian correspondent, in which, among the news of the day, there shall be the

following paragraph: "A Spanish gentleman, Don Gaston de Cogollos, has lately arrived at the court of

Parma. He is said to he nephew and sole heir to a rich widow of Coria. He is paying his addresses to a

nobleman's daughter; but the family wishes to ascertain the validity of his pretensions. Send me word,

therefore, whether you know this Don Gaston, together with the amount of his aunt's fortune. On your answer

The old gentleman considered this trick as a mere ebullition of humour, a lawful stratagem of amorous

warfare; and the jade of a gobetween, with conscience still more callous than her master's, was delighted

with the probability of the manoeuvre. It seemed to be so much the more happily imagined, as they knew

Helena to be a proud girl, capable of taking decisive measures, in the moment of surprise and indignation.

Don George undertook to be the herald of my fickleness, and by way of colouring the contrivance more

naturally, to confront the pretended correspondent with her. This project was executed as soon as formed. The

father, with counterfeit emotions of displeasure, said to Donna Helena: Daughter, it is not enough now to tell

you that our relations inveigh against an alliance with Don Austin's murderer; a still stronger reason

henceforward presses, to detach you from Don Gaston. It may well overwhelm you with shame, to have been

his dupe so long. Here is an undeniable proof of his inconstancy. Only read this letter just received by a

merchant of Coria from Italy. The trembling Helena caught at this forged paper; glanced over the writing;

then weighed every expression, and stood aghast at the import of the whole. A keen pang of disappointment

wrung from her a few reluctant tears; but pride came to her assistance; she wiped away the falling drops of

weakness, and said to her father in a determined tone: Sir, you have just been witness of my folly; now bear

testimony to my triumph over myself. The delusion is past; Don Gaston is the object of my utter contempt. I

am ready to meet Don Blas at the altar, and be beforehand with the traitor in the pledge of our transferred

affections. Don George, transported with joy at this change, embraced his daughter, extolled her spirit to the

skies, and hastened the necessary preparations, with all the selfcomplacency of a successful plotter.

Thus was Donna Helena snatched from me. She threw herself into the arms of Combados in a pet, not

listening to the secret whispers of love within her breast, nor suspecting a story which ought to have seemed

so improbable in the annals of true passion. The haughty are always the victims of their own rash

conclusions. Resentment of insulted beauty triumphed wholly over the suggestions of tenderness. And yet, a

few days after marriage, there came over her some feelings of remorse for her precipitation; it struck her that

the letter might have been a forgery; and the very possibility disturbed her peace. But the enamoured Don

Blas left his wife no time to nurse up thoughts injurious to their newfound joys; a succession of gaiety and

pleasure kept her in a thoughtless whirl, and shielded her from the pangs of unavailing repentance.

She appeared to be in high good humour with so spiritstirring a husband; so that they were living together in

perfect unanimity, when my aunt adjusted my affair with Don Austin's relations. Of this she wrote me word

to Italy. I returned on the wings of love. Donna Eleonora, not having announced the marriage, informed me

of it on my arrival; and remarking what pain it gave me, said: You are in the wrong, nephew, to shew so

much feeling for a faithless fair. Banish from your memory a person so unworthy to share in its tender

As my aunt did not know how Donna Helena had been played upon, she had reason to talk as she did: nor

could she have given me better advice. To affect indifference, if not to conquer my passion, was my bounden

duty. Yet there could be no harm in just inquiring by what means this union had been brought to bear. To get

at the truth, I determined on applying to Felicia's friend Theodora. There I met with Felicia herself, who was

confounded at my unwelcome presence, and would have escaped from the necessity of explanation. But I

stopped her. Why do you avoid me? said I. Has your perjured mistress forbidden you to give ear to my

complaints? or would you make a merit with the ungrateful woman, of your voluntary refusal?

Sir, answered the plotting abigail, I confess my fault, and throw myself on your mercy. Your appearance here

has filled me with remorse. My mistress has been betrayed, and unhappily in part by my agency. The

particulars of their infernal device followed this avowal, with an endeavour to make me amends for its

lamentable consequence. To this effect, she offered me her services with her mistress, and promised to

undeceive her; in a word, to work night and day, that she might soften the rigour of my sufferings, and open

I pass over the numberless contradictions she experienced, before she could accomplish the projected

interview. It was at length arranged to admit me privately, while Don Blas was at his huntingseat. The plot

did not linger. The husband went into the country, and they sent for me to his lady's apartment.

My onset was reproachful in the extreme, but my mouth was shut upon the subject. It is useless to look back

upon the past, said the lady. It can be no part of our present intention to work upon each other's feelings; and

you are grievously mistaken, if you fancy me inclined to flatter your aspiring hopes. My sole inducement for

receiving you here was to tell you personally, that you have only henceforth to forget me. Perhaps I might

have been better satisfied with my lot, had it been united with yours; but since heaven has ordered it

What! madam, answered I, is it not enough to have lost you, to see my successful rival in quiet possession of

all my soul holds dear, but I must also banish you from my thoughts? You would tear from me even my

passion, my only remaining blessing! And think you that a man, whom you have once enchanted, can recover

his selfpossession? Know yourself better, and cease to enforce impracticable behests. Well then! if so,

rejoined she with hurried importunity, do you cease to flatter yourself with interesting my gratitude or my

pity. In one short word, the wife of Don Blas shall never be the mistress of Don Gaston. Let us at once end a

conversation at which delicacy revolts m spite of virtue, and peremptorily forbids its longer continuance.

I now threw myself at the lady's feet in despair. All the powers of language and of tears were called forth to

soften her. But even this served only to excite some inbred sentiments of compassion, stifled as soon as born,

and sacrificed at the shrine of duty. After having fruitlessly exhausted all my stores of tender persuasion, rage

took possession of my breast. I drew my sword, and would have fallen on its point before the inexorable

Helena, but she saw my design and prevented it. Stay your rash hand, Cogollos, said she. Is it thus that you

consult my reputation? In dying thus and here, you will brand me with dishonour, and my husband with the

In the agony of my despair, far from yielding to these suggestions, I only struggled against the preventive

efforts of the two women, and should have struggled too successfully, if Don Blas had not appeared to second

them. He had been apprized of our assignation; and instead of going into the country, had concealed himself

behind the hangings, to overhear our conference. Don Gaston, cried he, as he arrested my uplifted arm, recall

Here I could hold no longer. Is it for you, said I, to turn me from my resolution? You ought rather yourself to

plunge a dagger in my bosom. My love, with all its train of miseries, is an insult to you. Have you not

surprised me in your wife's apartment at this unseasonable hour? what greater provocation can you want for

your revenge? Stab me, and rid yourself of a man, who can only give up the adoration of Donna Helena with

his life. It is in vain, answered Don Blas, that you endeavour to interest my honour in your destruction. You

are sufficiently punished for your rashness; and my wife's imprudence, in giving you this opportunity of

indulging it, is sanctified by the purity of her sentiments. Take my advice, Cogollos: shrink not effeminately

from your wayward destiny, but bear up against it with the patient courage of a hero.

The prudent Galician, by such language, gradually composed the ferment of my mind, and waked me once

more to virtue. I withdrew in the determination of removing far from the scene of my folly, and went for

Madrid, two days afterwards. There, pursuing the career of fortune and preferment, I appeared at court, and

laid myself out for connections. But it was my ill luck to attach myself particularly to the Marquis of

Villareal, a Portuguese grandee, who, lying under a suspicion of intending to emancipate his country from the

Spanish yoke, is now in the castle of Alicant. As the Duke of Lerma knew me to be closely connected with

this nobleman, he gave orders for my arrest and detention here. That minister thought me capable of engaging

in such a project he could not have offered a more outrageous affront to a man of noble birth and a

Don Gaston thus ended his story. By way of consolation I said to him, Illustrious sir, your honour can receive

no taint from this temporary detainer, and your interest will probably be promoted by it in the end. When the

Duke of Lerma shall be convinced of your innocence, he will not fail to give you a considerable post, and

OUR conversation was interrupted by Tordesillas, who came into the room, and addressed me thus: Signor

Gil Blas, I have just been speaking with a young man at the prison gate. He inquired if you were not here, and

looked much mortified at my refusal to satisfy his curiosity. Noble governor, said he, with tears in his eyes,

do not reject my most humble petition. I am Signor de Santillane's principal domestic, and you will do an act

of charity by allowing me to see him. You pass for a kindhearted gentleman in Segovia; I hope you will not

deny me the favour of conversing for a few minutes with my dear master, who is unfortunate rather than

criminal. In short, continued Don Andrew, the lad was so importunate, that I promised to comply with his

I assured Tordesillas that he could not have pleased me better than by bringing this young man to me, who

could probably communicate tidings of the last importance. I waited with impatience for the entrance of my

faithful Scipio; since I could not doubt him to be the man, nor was I mistaken in my conjecture. He was

introduced at the time appointed; and his joy, which only mine could equal, broke forth into the most

whimsical demonstrations. On my side, in the ecstasy of delight, I stretched out my arms to him, and he

rushed into them with no courtly measured embrace. All distinctions of master and dependent were levelled

When our transports had subsided a little, I inquired into the state of my household. You have neither

household nor house, answered he: to spare you a long string of questions, I will sum up your worldly

concerns in two words. Your property has been pillaged at both ends, both by the banditti of the law and by

your own retainers, who, regarding you as a ruined man, paid themselves their own wages out of whatever

they found that was portable. Luckily for you, I had the dexterity to save from their harpy clutches two large

bags of double pistoles. Salero, in whose custody I deposited them, will make restitution on your release,

CH. VII. Scipio finds Gil Blas out in the tower of Segovia, and brings him a budget of news. 283

which cannot be far distant, as you were put upon his majesty's pension list of prisoners without the Duke of

I asked Scipio how he knew his excellency to have had no share in my arrest. You may depend on it,

answered he, my information is undeniable. One of my friends in the Duke of Uzeda's confidence acquainted

me with all the circumstances of your imprisonment. Calderona, having discovered by a spy that Signora

Sirena, with the handle of an alias to her name, was receiving night visits from the Prince of Spain, and that

the Count de Lemos managed that intrigue by the panderism of Signor de Santillane, determined to be

revenged on the whole knot. To this end he waited on the Duke of Uzeda, and discovered the whole affair.

The duke, overjoyed at such a fine opportunity of ruining his enemy, did not fail to bestir himself. He laid his

information before the king, and painted the prince's danger in the most lively colours. His majesty was much

angered, and shewed that he was so, by sending Sirena to the nunnery provided for such frail sisters,

banishing the Count de Lemos, and condemning Gil Blas to perpetual imprisonment.

This, pursued Scipio, is what my friend told me. Hence, you gather your misfortune to be the Duke of

Thus it seemed probable that my affairs might be reinstated in time; that the Duke of Lerma, chagrined at his

nephew's banishment, would move heaven and earth for that nobleman's recall; and it might not be too much

to expect that his excellency would not forget me. What a delicate gipsy is hope! She wheedled me out of all

anxiety about my shattered fortunes, and made me as lighthearted as if I had good reason to be so. My

prison looked not like the dungeon of perpetual misery, but like the vestibule to a more distinguished station.

For thus ran the train of my reasoning: Don Fernando Borgia, Father Jerome of Florence, and more than all,

Friar Louis of Aliaga, who may thank him for his place about the king's person, are the prime minister's

partisans. With the aid of such powerful friends, his excellency will bear down all opposition, even supposing

no change to take place in the political barometer. But his majesty's health is very precarious. The first act of

a new reign would be to recall the Count de Lemos; he would not feel himself at home in the young

monarch's presence till he had introduced me at court; and the young monarch would not sit easy on his

throne till he had showered benefits on my head. Thus, feasting by anticipation on the pleasures of futurity, I

became callous to existing evils. The two bags, snug in the goldsmith's custody, were no bad doubles to the

It was impossible not to express my gratitude to Scipio for his zeal and honesty. I offered him half the

salvage, but he rejected it. I expect, said he, a very different acknowledgment. Astonished as much at his

mysterious claim as at his refusal, I asked what more I could do for him. Let us never part, answered he.

Allow me to link my fate with yours. I feel for you what I never felt for any other master. And on my part,

my good fellow, said I, you may rest assured that your attachment is not thrown away. You caught my fancy

at first sight. We must have been born under Libra or Gemini, where friendship is lord of the ascendant. I

willingly accept your proffered partnership, and will commence business by prevailing with the warden to

immure you along with me in this tower. That is the very thing, exclaimed he. You were beforehand with me,

for I was just going to beg that favour. Your company is dearer to me than liberty itself. I shall only just go to

Madrid now and then, to snuff the gale of the ministerial atmosphere, and try whether any scent lies which

may be favourable for your pursuit. Thus will you combine in me a bosom friend, a trusty messenger, and an

These advantages were too important for me to forego them. I therefore kept so useful a person about me,

with leave of the obliging warden, who would not stand in the way of so soothing a relief to the weariness of

CH. VII. Scipio finds Gil Blas out in the tower of Segovia, and brings him a budget of news. 284

IF it is a common proverb that our direst enemies are those of our own household, the converse ought equally

to be admitted among the saws of a more candid experience. After such incontestable proofs of Scipio's zeal,

he became to me like another self. All distinction of place was confounded between Gil Blas and his

secretary; all insolence was dropped on the one hand, all cringing on the other. Their lodging, bed, and board

Scipio's conversation was of a very lively turn; he might have been dubbed the Spanish Momus, without any

derogation to the Punch of the Pantheon. But he had a long head, as well as a fanciful brain, combining the

characters of counsellor and jester. My friend, said I, one day, what do you think of writing to the Duke of

Lerma? It could, methinks, do no harm. Why, as to that, answered he, the great are such chameleons, that

there is no knowing where to have them. At all events you may risk it; though I would not lay the postage of

your letter on its success. The minister loves you, it is true; but then political love lacks memory, as much as

personal love lacks visual discrimination. Out of sight, out of mind! is at once the motto and the stigma of

True as this may be in the general, replied I, my patron is a glorious exception. His kindness lives in my

recollection. I am persuaded that he suffers for my sufferings, and that they are incessantly preying on his

spirits. We must give him credit for only waiting till the king's anger shall pass away. Be it so, resumed he; I

wish you may not reckon without your host. Assail his excellency then with an epistle to stir the waters. I will

engage to deliver it into his own hands. Pen, ink, and paper being brought, I composed a specimen of

eloquence which Scipio declared to be a paragon of pathos, and Tordesillas preferred, for the cant of

I flattered myself that there would be tears in the Duke of Lerma's eyes, and distraction in his aspect, at the

detail of miseries which existed only on paper. In that assurance, I despatched my messenger, who no sooner

got to Madrid, than he went to the minister's. Meeting with an old domestic of my acquaintance, he had no

difficulty in gaining access to the duke. My lord, said Scipio to his excellency, as he delivered the packet, one

of your most devoted servants, lying at his length on straw, in a damp and dreary dungeon at Segovia, most

humbly supplicates for the perusal of this letter, which a tender hearted turnkey has furnished him with the

means of writing. The minister opened the letter, and glanced over the contents. But though he found there a

motive and a cue for passion, enough to amaze all his faculties at once, far from drowning the floor with

briny secretions, he cleaved the ear of his household, and smote the heart of my courier with horrid speech:

Friend, tell Santillane that he has a great deal of impudence to address me, after so rank an offence, worthily

confronted by the severe sentence of the king. Under that sentence let the wretch drag out his days, nor look

Scipio, though neither dull nor muddymettled, began to be unpregnant of this defeated cause. Yet he was

not so pigeon livered as to retire without an effort in my favour. My lord, replied he, this poor prisoner will

give up the ghost with grief, at the recital of your excellency's displeasure. The duke answered like a prime

minister, with a supercilious corrugation of features, and a decisive revolution of his front to some more

prosperous suitor. This he did, to cover his own share in the shame of pimping; and such treatment must all

those hireling scavengers expect, who rake in the filth and ordure of rotten statesmen, courtiers, and

My secretary came back to Segovia and delivered the result of his mission. And now behold me, sunk deeper

than on the first day of my imprisonment, in the gulf of affliction and despair! The Duke of Lerma's turning

king's evidence gave a hanging posture to my affairs. My courage was run out; and though they did all they

CH. VIII. Scipio's first journey to Madrid: its object and success. Gil Blas falls sick. The consequence of his illness. 285

could to keep up my spirits, the agitation and distress of my mind threw me into a fever.

The warden, who took a lively interest in my recovery, fancying in his unmedical head that physicians cured

fevers, brought me a double dose of death in two of that doleful deity's most practised executioners. Signor

Gil Blas, said he, as he ushered in their grisly forms, here are two godsons of Hippocrates, who are come to

feel your pulse, and to augment the number of their trophies in your person. I was so prejudiced against the

whole faculty, that I should certainly have given them a very discouraging reception, had life retained its

usual charms in my estimation; but being bent on my departure from this vale of tears, I felt obliged to

Tordesillas for hastening my journey, by a safer conveyance than the crime of suicide.

My good sir, said one of the pair, your recovery will, under Providence, depend on your entire confidence in

our skill. Implicit confidence I answered I: with your assistance, I am fully persuaded that a few days will

place me beyond the reach of fever, and all the shocks that flesh is heir to. Yes! with the blessing of Heaven,

rejoined he, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, and easily to be effected. At all events, our best

endeavours shall not be wanting. And indeed it was no joke: for they got me into such fine training for the

other world, that few of my material particles were left in this. Already had Don Andrew, observing me

fumble with the sheets, and smile upon my fingers' ends, and thinking there was but one way, sent for a

Franciscan to shew it me: already had the good father, having mumbled over the salvation of my soul, retired

to the refection of his own body: and my own opinion leaned to the immediate necessity of making a good

end. I beckoned Scipio to my bedside, My dear friend, said I, in the faint accents of a tortured and evacuated

patient I give and bequeath to you one of the bags in Gabriel's possession; the other you must carry to my

father and mother in the Asturias, who, if still living, must be in narrow circumstances. But, alas! I fear, they

have not been able to bear up against my ingratitude. Muscada's report of my unnatural behaviour must have

brought their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Should Heaven have fortified their tender hearts against my

indifference, you will give them the bag of doubloons, with assurances of my dying remorse: and, if they are

no more, I charge you to lay out the money in masses for the repose of their souls and of mine. Then did I

stretch out my hand, which he bathed in silent tears. It is not always true, that the mourning of an heir is mirth

For some hours I fancied myself outwardbound, and on the point of sailing; but the wind changed. My pilots

having quitted the helm, and left the vessel to the steerage of nature, the danger of shipwreck disappeared.

The fever, mutinying against its commanding officers, gave all their prognostics the lie, and acted contrary to

general orders. I got better by degrees, in mind as well as in body. My consolation was all derived from

within. I looked at wealth and honours with the eye of a dying anchorite, and blessed the malady which

restored my soul. I abjured courts, politics, and the Duke of Lerma. If ever my prison doors were opened, it

My bosom friend applauded my design, and to further its execution, under took a second journey to solicit

my release, by the intervention of a clever girl about the person of the prince's nurse. He contended that a

prison was a prison still, in spite of kind indulgence and good cheer. In this I agreed, and gave him leave to

depart, with a fervent prayer to Heaven that we might soon take possession of our hermitage.

WHILE waiting for Scipio's return from Madrid, I began a course of study. Tordesillas furnished me with

more books than I wanted. He borrowed them from an old officer who could not read, but had fitted up a

magnificent library, that he might pass for a man of learning. Above all, I delighted in moral essays and

treatises, because they abounded in commonplaces according with my antipathy to courts and philosophic

CH. IX. Scipio's second journey to Madrid. Gil Blas is set at liberty on certain conditions. Their departure from the tower of Segovia, and conversation on their journey. 286

Three weeks elapsed before I heard a syllable from my negotiator, who returned at length with a cheerful

countenance, and news to the following effect: By the intercession of a hundred pistoles with the

chambermaid, and her intercession with her mistress, the Prince of Spain has been prevailed with to plead for

your enlargement with his royal father. I hastened hither to announce these happy tidings, and must return

immediately to put the last hand to my work. With these words, he left me, and went back to court

At the week's end my expeditious agent returned, with the intelligence that the prince had procured my

liberty, not without some difficulty. On the same day my generous keeper confirmed the assurance in person,

with the kindest congratulations, and the following notice: Your prison doors are open, but on two

conditions, which I am sorry that my duty obliges me to announce, because they will probably be

disagreeable to you. His majesty expressly forbids you to shew your face at court, or to be found within the

limits of the two Castiles on this day month. I am extremely sorry that you are interdicted from court. And I

am delighted at it, answered I. Witness all the powers above! I asked the king for only one favour; he has

With my liberty thus confirmed, I hired a couple of mules, on which we mounted the next day, after taking

leave of Cogollos, and thanking Tordesillas a thousand times for all his instances of friendship. We set

forward cheerfully on the road to Madrid, to draw our deposit out of Signor Gabriel's hands, amounting to a

thousand doubloons. On the road my fellowtraveller observed: If we are not rich enough to purchase a

splendid property, we can at least secure ease and competency to ourselves. A cabin, answered I, would be

large enough for my most ambitious thoughts. Though scarcely at the middle period of life, the world has lost

its charms for me; its hopes, its fears, its cares, its duties, are all absorbed in the selfishness of philosophical

retirement. Independently of these principles, I can assure you I have painted for myself a rural landscape,

with a foreground of innocent pleasures, and pastoral simplicity in the perspective. Already does the enamel

of the meadows glitter under my eyes; already does the river's murmur accord with the winged chorus of the

grove: hunting exasperates the manly virtues, and fishing preaches patience. Only figure to yourself; my

friend, what a continual round of amusement solitude may furnish, and you will pant to be admitted of her

crew. Then for the economy of our table, the simplest will be the cheapest, and of course the best.

Unadulterated Ceres shall be our official caterer: when hunger shall have tamed our fastidious appetites into

sobriety, a mumbled crust will relish like an ortolan. The supreme delight of eating is not in the thing ate, but

in the palate of him who eats; a proposition in culinary philosophy, proved by the frequent loathing of my

own stomach, through a long series of ministerial dinners. Abstemiousness is a luxury of the most exquisite

With your good leave, Signor Gil Blas, interrupted my secretary, I am not altogether of your mind respecting

the luscious treat of abstemiousness. Why should we mess like the bankrupt sages of antiquity? Surely we

may indulge the carnal man a little, without any reasonable offence to the spiritual. Since we have, by the

blessing of Providence and my forecast, wherewithal to keep the spit and the spigot in exercise, do not let us

take up our abode with famine and wretchedness. As soon as we get settled, we must stock our cellar, and

establish a respectable larder, like people who know what is what, and do not separate themselves from the

vulgar crowd to renounce the good things of this life, but to taste them with a more exquisite relish. As

Hesiod says, Enjoy thy riches with a liberal soul;Plenteous the feast, all smiling be the bowl. And again,To

stint the wine a frugal husband shows,When from the middle of the cask it flows.

What the devil, Master Scipio, interrupted I in my turn, you can cap verses out of the Greek poets! And pray

where did you get acquainted with Hesiod? In very learned company, answered he. I lived some time with a

walking dictionary at Salamanca, a fellow up to the elbows in quotation and commentary. He could put a

large volume together like a house of cards. His library furnished him with a hodgepodge of Hebrew, Greek,

and Latin common places, which he translated into buckram Castilian. As I was his transcriber, some tags of

CH. IX. Scipio's second journey to Madrid. Gil Blas is set at liberty on certain conditions. Their departure from the tower of Segovia, and conversation on their journey. 287

verses, stings of epigrams, and sage truisms stuck by the way. With such an apparatus, replied I, your

memory must be most philosophically stocked. But, not to lose sight of our future prospects, whereabouts in

Spain had we best fix our Socratic abode? My voice is for Arragon, resumed my counsellor. We shall there

enjoy all the beauties of nature, and lead the life of Paradise. Well, then, for Arragon! said I. May it teem with

ON our arrival in Madrid, we alighted at a little publichouse where Scipio had been accustomed to put up,

whence our first visit was to my banker, Salero. He received us very cordially, and expressed the highest

satisfaction at my release. Indeed, added he, your untoward fate touched me so nearly as to change my views

of a political alliance. The fortunes of courtiers are like castles in the air: so I have married my daughter

Gabriela to a wealthy trader. You have acted very wisely, answered I; for besides that a bird in the hand is

worth two in a bush, when a plodding citizen aspires to the honour of bringing a man of fashion into his

Then changing the topic, and coming to the point: Signor Gabriel, pursued I, we came to talk a little about the

two thousand pistoles which. . . . Your money is all ready, said the goldsmith, interrupting me. He then took

us into his closet, and delivered the two bags, carefully labelled with my name on them.

I thanked Salero for his exactness, and heaven in my sleeve for my escape from his daughter. At our inn we

counted over the money, and found it right, deducting fifty doubloons for the expenses of my enlargement.

Our thoughts were now wholly bent upon Arragon. My secretary undertook to buy a carriage and two mules.

It was my office to provide household and body linen. During my peregrinations for that purpose, I met

Baron Steinbach, the officer in the German Guards with whom Don Alphonso had been brought up.

I touched my hat to him; he knew me again, and returned my greeting warmly. My joy is extreme, said I, at

seeing your lordship in such fine health, to say nothing of my wish to inquire after Don Caesar and Don

Alphonso de Leyva. They are both in Madrid, answered he, and staying at my house. They came to town

about three months ago, to be presented on occasion of Don Alphonso's promotion. He has been appointed

Governor of Valencia, on the score of old family claims, without having in any shape pushed his interest at

court. Nothing could be more grateful to his feelings, or prove more strongly our royal master's goodness,

who delights to recognize the merits of ancestry in the persons of their descendants.

Though I knew more of this matter than Steinbach, I kept my knowledge in the background. Yet so lively was

my impatience to hail my old masters, that he would not damp my ardour by delay. I had a mind to try Don

Alphonso, whether he still retained his regard for me. He was playing at chess with Baroness Steinbach, On

my entrance, he started up from his game, ran towards me, and squeezing me tight in his embrace: Santillane,

said he, with demonstrations of the sincerest joy, at length, then, you are restored to my heart. I am delighted

at it! It was not my fault that we ever parted. You may remember how strongly I urged you not to withdraw

from the Castle of Leyva. You were deaf to my entreaties. But I must not chide your obstinacy, because its

motive was the peace of the family. Yet you ought to have let me hear from you, and to have spared my

fruitless inquiries at Grenada, where my brotherinlaw, Don Ferdinand, sent me word that you were. And

now tell me what you are doing at Madrid. Of course you have some situation here. Be assured that I shall

always take a lively interest in your concerns. Sir, answered I, it is but four months since I occupied a

considerable post at court. I had the honour of being the Duke of Lerma's confidential secretary. Can it be

possible? exclaimed Don Alphonso, as if he could scarcely believe his ears. What, were you so near the

person of the prime minister? I then related how I had gained and lost his favour, and ended with avowing my

determination to buy a cottage and garden with the wreck of my shattered fortunes.

CH. X. Their doings at Madrid. The rencounter of Gil Blas in the street, and its consequences. 288

The son of Don Caesar heard me attentively, and made this answer: My dear Gil Blas, you know how I have

always loved you; nor shall you longer be fortune's puppet I will set you above her vagaries, by securing you

an independence. Since you declare for a country life, a little estate of ours near Lirias, about four leagues

from Valencia, shall be settled on you. You are acquainted with the spot. Such a present we can make,

without putting ourselves to the least inconvenience. I can answer for my father's joining in the act, and for

I threw myself at Don Alphonso's feet, who raised me immediately. More penetrated by his affection than by

his bounty, I pressed his hand and said, Sir, your conduct charms me. Your noble gift is the more welcome, as

it precedes the knowledge of a service it has been in my power to render you; and I had rather owe it to your

generosity, than to your gratitude. This governor of my making did not know what to understand by the hint,

and pressed for an explanation. I gave it in full, to his utter astonishment. Neither he nor Baron Steinbach

could ever have the slightest suspicion that the government of Valencia was owing to my interest at court.

Yet having no reason to doubt the fact, my friend proposed to grant me an annuity of two thousand ducats, in

Hold your hand, Signor Don Alphonso! exclaimed I at this offer. You must not set my avarice afloat again. I

am myself a living witness, that fortune may give superfluities to her favourites, but has no competence to

bestow. With pleasure will I accept of the estate at Lirias, where my present property will be sufficient for all

my wants. Rather than increase my cares with my possessions, I would build a hospital out of my existing

funds. Riches are a burden: and it must be a foolish animal that would bear fardels in the manger or the field.

While we were talking after this fashion, Den Caesar came in. His joy was not less than his son's at the sight

of me; and being informed of the family obligations, he again pressed me to accept of the annuity, which I

again refused. When the writings were drawn, the father and son made the assignment their joint act and

deed, transferring to me the fee simple, and putting me in immediate possession. My secretary half stared the

eyes out of his head, when I told him we lad a landed estate of our own, and how we came by it. What is the

value of this little freehold? said he. Five hundred ducats per annum, answered I, and the farm in high

cultivation, within a ring fence. I have often been there during my stewardship. There is a small house on the

What pleases me better than all, cried Scipio, is that we shall have plenty of sporting, rare living, and

excellent wine. Come, master, let us leave this crowded city, and hasten to our hermitage. I long to be there as

much as you can do, answered I; but I must first go to the Asturias. My father and mother are not in

comfortable circumstances. They shall therefore end their days with me at Lirias. Heaven, perhaps, has

thrown this windfall in my way to try my filial duty, and would punish me for the neglect of it Scipio

approved my purpose, and urged its speedy execution. Yes, my friend, said I, we will set out as soon as

possible. I shall consider it as my dear delight to share the gifts of fortune with the authors of my existence.

We shall soon be settled in our country retreat; and then will I write these two Latin verses over the door of

my farmhouse, in letters of gold, for the pious edification of my rustic neighbours:

JUST as I was arranging matters to take my departure from Madrid, and go with Scipio to the Asturias, Paul

V. gave the Duke of Lerma a cardinal's hat. This pope, wishing to establish the inquisition in the kingdom of

Naples, invested the minister with the purple, and by that means hoped to bring King Philip over to so pious

and praiseworthy a design. Those who were best acquainted with this new member of the sacred college,

thought much like myself, that the church was in a fair way for apostolical purity, after so ghostly an

Scipio, who would have liked better to see me once more blazing at court, than either cloistered or rusticated,

advised me to shew my face at the cardinal's audience. Perhaps, said he, his eminence, finding you at large by

the king's order, may think it unnecessary to affect any further displeasure against you, and may even

reinstate you in his service. My good friend Scipio, answered I, you seem to forget that my liberty was

granted only on condition of making myself scarce in the two Castiles. Besides, can you suppose me so soon

inclined to become an absentee from my domain of Lirias? I have told you before, and I tell it you once

again: Though the Duke of Lerma should restore me to his good graces, though he should even offer me Don

Rodrigo de Calderona's place, I would refuse it. My resolution is taken: I mean to go and find out my parents

at Oviedo, and carry them with me to Valencia. As for you, my good fellow, if you repent of having linked

your fate with mine, you have only to say so: I am ready to give you half of my ready money, and you may

stay at Madrid, where fortune puts on her kindest smiles to those who woo her lustily.

What then! replied my secretary, a little affected by these words, can you suspect me of any unwillingness to

follow you into your retreat? The very idea is an injury to my zeal and my attachment . . . . What, Scipio! that

faithful appendage, who would willingly have passed the remnant of his days with you in the tower of

Segovia, rather than abandon you to your wretched fate, can he feel sorrowful at the prospect of an abode,

where a thousand rural delights are waiting to smile on his arrival? No, no, I have not a wish to turn you aside

from your resolution. Nor can I refrain from owning my malicious drift; when I advised you to shew your

face at the Duke of Lerma's audience, it was for the purpose of ascertaining whether any seedlings of

ambition were scattered among the fallows of your philosophy. Since that point is settled, and you are

mortified to all the pomps and vanities of the world; let us make the best of our way from court, to go and

suck in with Zephyrus and Flora the innocent, delicious pleasures so luxuriant in the nursery of our

In fact, we soon afterwards took our departure together, in a chaise drawn by two good mules, driven by a

postilion whom I had added to my establishment. We stopped the first day at Alcala de Henar�s, and the

second at Segovia, whence, without stopping to see our generous warden, Tordesillas, we went forward to

Pen�fiel on the Duero, and the next day to Valladolid. At sight of this large town, I could not help fetching a

deep sigh. My companion, surprised at that conscientious ventilation, inquired the reason of it. My good

fellow, said I, it is because I practised medicine here for a long time. It gives me the horrors, even now, to

think of my unexpiated murders. The whole list of killed and wounded are mustered in battlearray yonder:

the tomb and the hospital yawn with their disgorged inhabitants, who are rushing on to tear me piecemeal,

and exact the vengeance due to the drenched crew. What a dreadful fancy! said my secretary. In truth, Signor

de Santillane, your nature is too tender. Why should you be shocked at the common course of exchange in

your branch of trade? Look at all the oldest physicians: their withers are unwrung. What can exceed the

selfcomplacency with which they view the exits of patients, and the entrances of diseases? Natural

constitution bears the brunt of all their failures, and medical infallibility takes the credit of lucky accidents.

It is very true, replied I, that Doctor Sangrado, on whose practice I formed myself, was like the rest of the old

physicians in point of selfcomplacency. It was to little purpose that twenty people in a day yielded to his

prowess; he was so persuaded that bleeding in the arm and copious libations of warm water were specifics for

every case, that instead of doubting whether the death of his patients might not possibly invalidate the

efficacy of his prescriptions, he ascribed the result to a vacillating compliance with his system. By all the

powers! cried Scipio with a burst of laughter, you open to me an incomparable character. If you have any

curiosity to be better acquainted with him, said I, it may be gratified tomorrow, should Sangrado be still

living, and resident at Valladolid: but it is highly improbable; for he had one foot in the grave when I left him

Our first care, on putting up at the inn, was to inquire after this doctor. We were told that he was not dead; but

being incapacitated by age from paying visits or any other vigorous exertions, he had been superseded by

three or four other doctors who had risen into repute by a new practice, accomplishing the same end by

different means. We determined on lying by for a day at Valladolid, as well to rest our mules, as to call on

Signor Sangrado. About ten o'clock next morning we knocked at his door; and found him sitting in his

elbowchair, with a book in his hand. He rose on our entrance; advanced to meet us with a firm step for a

man of seventy, and begged to know our business. My worthy and approved good master, said I, have you

lost all recollection of an old pupil? There was formerly one Gil Blas, as you may remember, a boarder in

your house, and for some time your deputy. What! is it you, Santillane? answered he, with a cordial embrace.

I should not have known you again. It, however, gives me great pleasure to see you once more. What have

you been doing since we parted? Doubtless you have made medicine your profession. It was very strongly

my inclination so to do, replied I; but imperious circumstances made me reluctantly abandon so illustrious a

So much the worse, rejoined Sangrado: with the principles you sucked in under my tuition, you would have

become a physician of the first skill and eminence, with the guiding influence of heaven to defend you from

the dangerous allurements of chemistry. Ah, my son! pursued he with a mournful air, what a change in

practice within these few years! The whole honour and dignity of the art is compromised. That mystery, by

whose inscrutable decrees the lives of men have in all ages been determined, is now laid open to the rude,

untutored gaze of blockheads, novices, and mountebanks. Facts are stubborn things; and ere long the very

stones will cry aloud against the rascality of these new practitioners: lapides clamabunt! Why, sir, there are

fellows in this town, calling themselves physicians, who drag their degraded persons at the currus triumphalis

antimonii, or as it should properly be translated, the cart's tail of antimony. Apostates from the faith of

Paracelsus, idolaters of filthy kermes, healers at haphazard, who make all the science of medicine to consist

in the preparation and prescription of drugs. What a change have I to announce to you! There is not one stone

left upon another in the whole structure which our great predecessors had raised. Bleeding in the feet, for

example, so rarely practised in better times, is now among the fashionable follies of the day. That gentle,

civilized system of evacuation which prevailed under my auspices is subverted by the reign of anarchy and

emetics, of quackery and poison. In short, chaos is come again! Every one orders what seems good in his own

eyes; there is no deference to the authority of ancient wisdom; our masters are laid upon the shelf, and their

axioms not one tittle the more regarded, for being delivered in languages as defunct as the subjects of their

However desirable it might seem to laugh at so whimsical a declamation, I had the good manners to resist the

impulse; and not only that, but to inveigh bitterly against kermes, without knowing whether it was a

vegetable or an animal, and to pour forth a commination of curses against the authors and inventors of so

diabolical an engine. Scipio, observing my byplay in this scene, had a mind to come in for his share in the

banter. Most venerable prop of the true practice, said he to Sangrado, as I am descended in the third

generation from a physician of the old school, give me leave to join you in your philippic against chemical

conspiracies. My late illustrious progenitor, heaven forgive him all his sins! was so warm a partisan of

Hippocrates, that he often came to blows with ignorant pretenders, who vomited forth blasphemies against

that high priest of the faculty. What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh: I could willingly inflict

tortures and death with my own hands on those rash innovators whose daring enormities you have

characterized with such accuracy of discrimination and such force of language. When wretches like these

gain an ascendancy in civilized society, can we wonder at the disjointed condition of the world?

The times are even more out of joint than you are aware of, said the doctor. My book against the vanities and

delusions of the new practice might as well have fallen stillborn from the press; it seems, if anything, to

have acted by contraries, and to have exasperated heresy. The apothecaries, like the Titans of old, heaping

potion upon pill, and invading the Olympus of medicine, think themselves fully qualified to usurp and

maintain the throne, now that it is only thought necessary to set open the doors, and to drive the enemy out at

the portal or the postern by main force. They go to the length of infusing their deadly drugs into apozems and

cordials, and then set themselves up against the most eminent of the fraternity. This contagion has spread its

influence even among the cloisters. There are monks in our convents who unite surgery and pharmacy to the

labours of the confessional. Those medical baboons are always dipping their paws into chemistry, and

inventing compositions strong enough to lay a scene of ecclesiastical mortality in the temperate abodes of

peace and religion. Now there are in Valladolid above sixty religious houses for both sexes; judge what

ravage must have been made there by unmerciful pumping and the lancet misapplied. Signor Sangrado, said

I, you are perfectly in the right to give these poisoners no quarter. I utter groan for groan with you, and heave

the philanthropic sigh over the invaded lives of our fellowcreatures, sinking under the fell attack of so

heterodox a practice. It fills me with horror to think what a dead weight chemistry may one day be to

medicine, just as adulterated coin operates on national credit. Far be that evil day from this generation.

Just at this climax of our discourse, in came an old female servant, with a salver for the doctor, on which was

a little light roll and a glass with two decanters, the one filled with water and the other with wine. After he

had eaten a slice, he washed it down with a diluted beverage, two parts water to one of wine; but this

temperate use of the good creature did not at all save him from the acrimony of my ridicule. So so, good

master doctor, said I, you are fairly caught in the fact. You a wine bibber! you, who have entered the lists

like a knighterrant against that unauthenticated fermentation? you, who reached your grand climacteric on

the strength of the pure element? How long have you been so at odds with yourself? Your time of life can be

no excuse for the alteration; since, in one passage of your writings, you define old age to be a natural

consumption, which withers and attenuates the system; and as an inference from that position, you reprobate

the ignorance of those writers who dignify wine with the appellation of old men's milk. What can you say,

You belabour me most unjustly, answered the old physician. If I drank neat wine, you would have a right to

treat me as a deserter from my own standard; but your eyes may convince you that my wine is well mixed.

Another heresy, my dear apostle of the wells and fountains! replied I. Recollect how you rated the canon

S�dillo for drinking wine, though plentifully dashed with the salubrious fluid. Own modestly and candidly

that your theory was unfounded and fanciful, and that wine is not a poisonous liquor, as you have so falsely

and scandalously libelled it in your works, any further than, like any other of nature's bounties, it may be

This lecture sat rather uneasily on our doctor's feelings, as a candidate for consistency. He could not deny his

inveteracy against the use of wine in all his publications; but pride and vanity not allowing him to

acknowledge the justice of my attack on his apostasy, he was left without a word to say for himself. Not

wishing to push my sarcasm beyond the bounds of good humour, I changed the subject; and after a few

minutes' longer stay, took my leave, gravely exhorting him to maintain his ground against the new

practitioners. Courage, Signor Sangrado! said I: never be weary of setting your wits against kermes; and

deafen the health dispensing tribe with your thunders against the use of bleeding in the feet. If, spite of all

your zeal and affection for medical orthodoxy, this empiric generation should succeed in supplanting true and

legitimate practice, it will be at least your consolation to have exhausted your best endeavours in the support

As my secretary and myself were walking to the inn, making our observations in high glee on the doctor's

entertaining and original character, n man from fifty five to sixty years of age happened to pass near us in the

street, walking with his eyes fixed on the ground, and a large rosary in his hand. I conned over the distinctive

cut of his appearance most cunningly, and was rewarded in the recognition of Signor Manuel Ordonnez, that

faithful trustee for the affairs of the hospital, of whom so honourable mention is made in the first volume of

these true and instructive memoirs. Accosting him with the most profound and unquestionable tokens of

respect, I paid my compliments in due form and order to the venerable and trustworthy Signor Manuel

Ordonnez, the man of all the world in whose hands the interests of the poor and needy are most safely and

beneficially placed. At these words he looked me steadfastly in the face, and answered that my features were

not altogether strange to him, but that he could not recollect where he had seen me. I used to go backwards

and forwards to your house, replied I, when one of my friends, by name Fabricio Nunez, was in your service.

Ah! I recollect the circumstance at once, rejoined the worthy director with a cunning leer, and have good

reason to do so; for you were a brace of pleasant lads, and were by no means backward in the little scape

grace tricks of youth and inexperience. Well! and what is become of poor Fabricio? Whenever he comes

across my thoughts, I cannot help feeling a little uneasy about his temporal and eternal welfare.

It was to relieve your mind upon that subject, said I to Signor Manuel, that I have taken the liberty of

stopping you in the street. Fabricio is settled at Madrid, where he employs himself in publishing miscellanies

and collections. What do you mean by miscellanies and collections? replied he. I mean, resumed I, that he

writes in verse and prose, from epic poems and the highest branches of philosophy, down to plays, novels,

epigrams, and riddles. In short, he is a lad of universal genius, and most exemplary benevolence; sometimes

modestly taking to himself the credit of his own compositions, and sometimes lending out his talents to the

literary ambition of those noblemen who write for their own amusement, but wish their names to be

concealed, except from a chosen circle. By traffic like this he sits at the very first tables. But how does he sit

at his own? said the director: upon what terms does he live with his baker? Not quite so confidentially as with

people of fashion, answered I; for between ourselves, I take him to be quite as much out at elbows as ever Job

was. More bonds and judgments against him than ever Job had, take my word for it! replied Ordonnez. Let

him lick the spittle of his titled friends and patrons till his stomach heaves at the nauseating saliva; his printed

dedications and his oral flattery, in spite of all the cringing and all the toadeating, which constitute the

stockintrade of his profession, with all the profits of his works, whether by subscription or ordinary

publication, will not bring grist enough to his mill, to keep hunger from the door. Mind if what I say does not

Nothing more likely! replied I; for he cohabits with the muses already; and many a plain man has found, to

his cost, that there is no keeping company with the sisters, without being worried by their bullying brethren.

My friend Fabricio would have done much better by remaining quietly with your lordship; he would now

have been lying on a bed of roses, and everything he had touched would have turned to gold. He would at

least have been in a very snug berth, said Manuel. He was a great favourite of mine; and I meant, by a regular

gradation from subaltern to principal situations, to have established him in ease and affluence on the basis of

public charity; but the foolish fellow took it into his head to set up for a wit. He wrote a play, and brought it

out at the theatre in this town: the piece went off tolerably well, and nothing thenceforth would serve his turn

but commencing author by profession. Lope de Vega, in his estimation, was but a type of him: preferring,

therefore, the intoxicating vapour of public applause to the plain roast and boiled of this substantial ordinary,

he came to me for his discharge. It was to no purpose for me to argue the point, or to prove to him what a

silly cur he was, to drop the bone and run after the shadow: the mad blockhead was so suffocated by the

smother of authorship, that the instinctive dread of fire could not rouse his alacrity to escape burning. In

short, he was miserably unconscious of his own interest, as his successor can testify: for he, possessing

practical good sense, though without half Fabricio's quickness and versatility, makes it his whole study and

delight to go through his business in a workmanlike manner, and to fall in with all my little ways. In return

for such good conduct, I pushed him forward in a manner corresponding with his deserts; and he unites in his

own person, even at this time of day, two offices in the hospital, the least lucrative of which would be more

than sufficient to place any honest man at his ease, though encumbered with a yearly teeming wife.

FROM Valladolid we got to Oviedo in four days, without any untoward accident on the road, in spite of the

proverb, which says, that robbers lay their ears to the ground, when pilgrims are going with rich offerings,

and traders are riding with fat purses. It would have been a feasible, as well as a tempting speculation. Two

tenants of a subterraneous abode might have presented an aspect to have frightened our doubloons into a

surrender; for courage was not one of the qualities I had imbibed at court; and Bertrand, my muledriver,

seemed not to be of a temper to get his brains blown out in defending a purse into which he had no free

It was night when we came into town. Our lodgings were at an inn near my uncle, Gil Perez, the canon. I was

very desirous of ascertaining the circumstances of my parents before my first interview with them; and, in

order to gain that information, it was impossible to make my inquiries in a better channel than through my

landlord and landlady, into the lines of whose faces you could not look without being satisfied that they knew

every tittle of their neighbours' concerns. As it turned out, the landlord kenned me after a diligent perusal of

my features, and cried out: By Saint Anthony of Padua! this is the son of the honest usher, Blas of Santillane.

Ay, indeed! said the hostess; and so it is: without a single muscle altered! just for all the world that same little

stripling Gil Blas, of whom we used to say that he was as saucy as he was high. It brings old times to my

memory! when he used to come hither with his bottle under his arm, to fetch wine for his uncle's supper.

Madam, said I, you have a most inveterate memory; but for goodness' sake change the subject, and tell me the

modern news of my family. My father and mother are doubtless in no very enviable situation. In good truth,

you may say that, answered the landlady: you may rack your brains as long as you like, but you will never

think of anything half so miserable as what they are suffering at this present moment. Gil Perez, good soul! is

defunct all down one side by a stroke of the palsy, and the other half of him is little better than a corpse; we

cannot expect him to last long: then your father, who went to live with his reverence a little while ago, is

troubled with an inflammation of the lungs, and is standing, as a body may say, quaverymavery between life

and death; while your mother, who is not over and above hale and hearty herself, is obliged to nurse them

On this intelligence, which made me feel some compunctious yearnings of nature, I left Bertrand with my

stud and baggage at the inn: then, with my secretary at my heels, who would not desert me in my time of

need, I repaired to my uncle's house. The moment I came within my mother's reach, a natural emotion of

maternal instinct unfolded to her who I was, before her eyes could possibly have run over the traces of my

countenance. Son, said she, with a melancholy expression, after having embraced me, come and be present at

your father's death; your visit is just in time to take in all the piteous circumstances of so deplorable an event.

With this heartrending reception, she led me by the hand into a chamber where the wretched Blas of

Santillane, stretched on a comfortless bed, in cold and dismal accord with the thinness of his fortunes, was

just entering on the last great act of human nature. Though surrounded by the shades of death, he was not

quite unconscious of what was passing about him. My dearest friend, said my mother, here is your son Gil

Blas, who entreats your forgiveness for all his undutiful behaviour, and is come to ask your blessing before

you die. At these tidings my father opened his eyes, which where on the point of closing for ever: he fixed

them upon me; and reading in my countenance, notwithstanding the awful brink on which he stood, that I was

a sincere mourner for his loss, his feelings were recalled to sympathy by my sorrow. He even made an

attempt to speak, but his strength was too much exhausted. I took one of his hands in mine, and while I

bathed it with my tears, in speechless agony of soul, he breathed his last, as if he had only waited my arrival

CH. II. Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his family. His father's death, and its consequences. 294

This event had been too long present to my mother's mind to overwhelm her with any unparalleled affliction.

Perhaps it sat more heavily on me than on her, though my father had never in his life given me any reason to

feel for him as a father. But besides that mere filial instinct would have made me weep over his cold remains,

I reproached myself with not having contributed to the comfort of his latter days; then, when I considered

what a hard hearted villain I had been, I seemed to myself like a monster of ingratitude, or rather like an

impious parricide. My uncle, whom I afterwards saw lying at his length on another wretched couch, and in a

most lamentable pickle, made me experience fresh agonies of upbraiding conscience. Unnatural son! said I,

communing with my own uneasy thoughts, behold the chastisement of heaven upon thy sins, in the

disconsolate condition of thy nearest relations. Hadst thou but thrown to them the superflux of that

abundance, in which before thy imprisonment thou rolledst, thou mightest have procured for them those little

comforts which thy uncle's ecclesiastical pittance was too scanty to furnish, and perhaps have lengthened out

Gil Perez had fallen into a state of second childhood, and was, though numerically upon the list of the living,

in every individual organ a mere corpse. His memory, nay, his very senses had retired from their allotted

stations in his system. Bootless was it for me to strain him in my pious arms, and lavish outward tokens of

affection on him: they might as well have been wasted on the desert air. To as little purpose did my mother

ring in his unnerved ear, that I was his nephew Gil Blas; be gazed at me with a vacant, stupid stare, and gave

neither sign nor answer. Had the ties of consanguinity and gratitude been all too weak, to awaken my tender

sympathy for an uncle, to whom I owed the means of my first launch into the world, the impression of

helpless dotage on my senses must have softened me into something like the counterfeit of virtuous emotion.

While this scene was passing, Scipio preserved a melancholy silence, sharing in all my sorrows, and mingling

his sighs with mine in the chastised luxury of friendship. But concluding that my mother, after so long an

absence, might wish to have some such conversation with me, as the presence of a stranger must rather

repress than promote, I drew him aside, saying, Go, my good fellow, sit down quietly at the inn, and leave me

here with my only surviving parent, who might consider your company as an intrusion, while talking over

family affairs. Scipio withdrew, for fear of being a clog upon our confidence; and I sat down with my mother

to an interchange of communication, which lasted all night. We reciprocally gave a faithful account of all that

had happened to each of us, since my first sally from Oviedo. She related, in full measure and running over,

all the petty insults, disappointments, and mortifications, which she had undergone in her pilgrimage from

house to house as a duenna. A great number of these little anecdotes it would have hurt my pride that my

secretary should have noted down in his biographical budget, though I had never concealed from him the ups

and downs in the lottery of my own life. With all the respect I owe to my mother's sainted memory, the good

lady had not the knack of going the shortest road to the end of a story; had she but pruned her own memoirs

of all luxuriant circumstances, there would not have been materials for more than a tithe of her narrative.

At length she got to the end of her tether, and I began my career. With respect to my general adventures, I

passed them over lightly; but when I came to speak of the visit which the son of Bertrand Muscada, the

grocer of Oviedo, had paid me at Madrid, I enlarged with decent compunction on that dark article in the

history of my life. I must frankly own, said I to my mother, that I gave that young fellow a very bad

reception; and he, doubtless, in revenge, must have drawn a hideous outline of my moral features. He did you

more than justice, I trust, answered she; for he told us that he found you so puffed and swollen with the good

fortune thrust upon you by the prime minister, as scarcely to acknowledge him among your former

acquaintance; and when he gave you a moving description of our miseries, you listened as if you had no

interest in the tale, or knowledge of the parties. But as fathers and mothers can always find some clue for

palliation in the conduct of their graceless children, we were loath to believe that you had so bad a heart.

Your arrival at Oviedo justifies our favourable interpretation, and those tears which are now flowing down

CH. II. Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his family. His father's death, and its consequences. 295

Your constructions were too partial, replied I; there was a great deal of truth in young Muscada's report.

When he came to see me all my faculties were engrossed by vanity and mammon; ambition, the prevailing

devil which possessed me, left not a thought to throw away on the desolate condition of my parents. It

therefore could be no wonder, if in such a disposition of mind I gave rather a freezing reception to a man

who, accosting me in a peremptory style, took upon him to say, without mincing the matter, that it was well

known I was as rich as a Jew, and therefore he advised me to send you a good round sum, seeing that you

were very much put to your shifts: nay, he went so far as to reproach me, in phrase of more sincerity than

good manners, with my unfeeling negligence of my family. His confounded personality stuck in my throat; so

that losing my little stock of patience, I shoved him fairly by the shoulders out of my closet. It must be

confessed that I took the administration of justice a little too much into my own hands, being judge and party

in the same cause; neither was it proper that you should bear the brunt, because the grocer was a little

antisaccharine in his phraseology; nor was his advice the less pertinent or just, though couched in homely

All this came plump in the teeth of my conscience, the moment I had turned Muscada out of doors. The voice

of natural instinct contrived to make its way; my duty to my parents brought the blood into my face; but it

was the blush of shame for its neglect, and not the glow of triumph at its performance. Yet even my remorse

can give me little credit in your eyes, since it was soon stifled in the fumes of avarice and ambition. But some

time afterwards, having been safely lodged in the tower of Segovia by royal mandate, I fell dangerously ill

there; and that timely remembrancer was the cause of bringing back your son to you. So true is it, that

sickness and imprisonment were my best moral tutors; for they enabled nature to resume her rights, and

weaned me effectually from the court. Henceforth all my dear delight is in solitude; and my only business in

the Asturias is to entreat that you would share with me in the mild pleasures of a retired life. If you reject not

my earnest petition, I will attend you to an estate of mine in the kingdom of Valencia, and we will live there

together very comfortably. You are of course aware that I intended to take my father thither also; but since

heaven has ordained it otherwise, let me at least have the satisfaction of affording an asylum to my mother,

and making amends by all the attentions in my power for the fallow seasons in the former harvest of my filial

I accept your kind intentions in very good part, said my mother; and would take the journey without

hesitation, if I saw no obstacles in the way. But to desert your uncle in his present condition would be

unpardonable; and I am too much accustomed to this part of the country, to like living elsewhere:

nevertheless, as the proposal deserves to be maturely weighed, I will consider further of it at my leisure, At

present, your father's funeral requires to be ordered and arranged. As for that, said I, we will leave it to the

care of the young man whom you saw with me; he is my secretary, with as clever a head and as good a heart

as you have often been acquainted with; let the business rest with him; it cannot be in better hands.

Hardly had I pronounced these words, when Scipio came back; for it was already broad day. He inquired

whether he could be of any service in our present distresses. I answered that he was come just in time to

receive some very important directions. As soon as he was made acquainted with the business in hand: A

word to the wise! said he: the whole procession with its appropriate heraldry is already marshalled in this

head of mine; you may trust me for a very pretty funeral. Have a care, said my mother, to make it plain and

decent without anything like pomp or parade. It can scarcely be too humble for my husband, whom all the

town knows to have been low in rank, and indigent in circumstances. Madam, replied Scipio, though he had

been the meanest and most destitute of the human race, I would not bate one button in the array of his

posthumous honours. My master's credit is at stake in the proper conduct of the ceremony; he has been in an

ostensible situation under the Duke of Lerma, and his father ought to be buried with all the forms of state and

I thought exactly as my secretary did upon the subject; and even went so far as to bid him spare no expense

on the occasion. A little leaven of vanity still fermented in the mass of my philosophy, and rose in my bosom

CH. II. Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his family. His father's death, and its consequences. 296

with all the effervescence of its original lightness. I flattered myself that by lavishing posthumous honours on

a father who had blessed the day of his decease by no lucrative bequest, I should instil into the conceptions of

the bystanders a high sense of my generous nature. My mother, on her part, whatever airs of humility she

might put on, had no dislike to seeing her husband carried out with due observance of funeral pomp and

ceremony. We therefore left Scipio to do just as he pleased; and he, without a moment's delay, adopted all the

The genius of that artist was called forth but too successfully. His emblems, devices, and draperies, were so

ostentatious, as to disgust instead of cajoling the natives: every individual, whether of the town or the

suburbs, whether high or low, rich or poor, felt shocked and insulted by this afterthought parade. This

ministerial beggar on horseback, said one, can put his hand into his pocket for his father's funeral baked

meats, but never found in his heart wherewithal to furnish his living table with common necessaries. It would

have been much more to the purpose, said another, to have made the old gentleman's latter days comfortable,

than to have wasted such thriftless sums on a post obit act of filial munificence. In short, quips of the brain

and peltings of the tongue pattered round our execrated heads. It would have been well had the storm been

only a whirlwind of passion, or hurricane of words; but we were all, Scipio, Bertrand, and myself, corporally

admonished of our misdeeds, on our coming out of church; they abused us like pickpockets, made mouths

and odious noises as we passed, and followed Bertrand at his heels to the inn with a copious volley of stones

and mud. To disperse the mob which had collected before my uncle's house, my mother was obliged to shew

herself at the window, and to declare publicly, that she was thoroughly satisfied with my proceedings.

Another detachment had filed off to the stableyard where my carriage stood, in the full determination of

breaking it to pieces; and this they would inevitably have done, if the landlord and lady had not found some

means of quieting their perturbed spirits, and turning them aside from their outrageous purpose.

All these affronts, so revolting to my dignity, the effect of the tales which the young grocer had been

spreading about town, inspired me with such a thorough hatred for my native place, that I determined on

quitting Oviedo almost immediately, though but for this bustle I might have made it my residence for some

time. I announced my intention, with the reasons of it, to my mother, who, considering my uncouth reception

as no very flattering compliment to herself, did not urge my longer stay among people so little inclined to

treat me civilly. The only point remaining now to be discussed was her future destiny and provision. My dear

mother, said I, since my uncle stands so much in need of your attendance, I will no longer urge you to go

along with me; but, as his days seem likely to be very few on earth, you must promise to come and take up

your abode with me at my farm, as soon as the last duties are performed to his honoured remains.

I shall make no such promise, answered my mother, for I mean to pass the remnant of my days in the

Asturias, and in a state of perfect independence. Will you not on all occasions, replied I, be absolute mistress

in my household? May be so, and may be not! rejoined she: you have only to fall in love with some flirt of a

girl, and then you will marry: then she will be my daughterin law, and I shall be her stepmother; and then

we shall live together as step mothers and daughtersinlaw usually do. Your prognostics, said I, are fetched

from a great distance. I have not at present the most remote intention of entering into the happy state: but

even though such a whim should take possession of my brain, I will pledge myself for instructing my wife

betimes in an implicit submission to your will and pleasure. That is giving security, without the means of

making good your contract, replied my mother: you would scarcely be able to justify bail. I would not even

swear that in our sparringmatches, you might not take your wife's part in preference to mine, however ill she

You talk very excellent sense, madam, cried my secretary, coming in for his share of the conversation: I think

just as you do, that docility is about as much the virtue of a donkey as of a daughterinlaw. As the matter

stands, that there may be no difference of opinion between my master and you, since you are absolutely

determined to live asunder, you in the Asturias, and he in the kingdom of Valencia, he must allow you an

annuity of a hundred pistoles, and send me hither every year for the payment. By thus arranging matters,

CH. II. Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his family. His father's death, and its consequences. 297

mother and son will be very good friends, with an interval of two hundred leagues between them. The parties

concerned fell in at once with the proposal: I paid the first year in advance, and stole out of Oviedo the next

morning before dawn, for fear of vying with Saint Stephen in popular favour. Such were the charms of my

return to my native place. An admirable lesson this for those successful upstarts, who having gone abroad to

make their fortunes, come home to be the purseproud tyrants of their birthplace.

We took the road for Leon, afterwards that of Palencia; and, continuing our journey by short stages, arrived

on the evening of the tenth day at the town of Segorba, whence early on the morrow we repaired to my seat,

at the distance of very little more than three leagues. In proportion as we approached nearer, it was amusing

to see with what a longing eye my secretary looked at all the estates which lay in our way, to the right and left

of the road. Whenever he caught a glimpse of any which bespoke the rank and opulence of its owner, he

never missed pointing at it with his finger, and wishing that were the place of our retreat.

I know not, my good friend, said I, what idea you have formed of our habitation; but if you have taken it into

your head that ours is a magnificent house, with the domain of a great landed proprietor, I warn you in time

If you have no mind to be the dupe of a warm imagination, figure to yourself the little ornamented cottage

which Horace fitted up near Tibur in the country of the Sabines, on a small farm, the feesimple of which

was given hint by Maecenas. Don Alphonso has made me just such another present, more as a token of

affection than for the value of the thing. Then I must expect to see nothing but a dirty hovel! exclaimed

Scipio. Bear in mind, replied I, that I have always given you quite an unvarnished description of my place;

and now, even at this moment, you may judge for yourself whether I have not stuck to truth and nature in my

representations. Just carry your eye along the course of the Guadalaviar, and observe at a little distance from

the further bank, near that hamlet, consisting of nine or ten tenements, a house with four small turrets; that is

The deuce and all! stammered out my secretary, shortbreathed with sudden admiration: why, that house is

one of the prettiest things in nature. Besides the castellated air which those turrets give it, all the beauties of

situation and architecture, fertility of soil, and perfection of landscape, combine to rival or excel the

immediate neighbourhood of Seville, complimented as it is for its picturesque attractions by the appellation

of an earthly paradise. Had we chosen the place of our settlement for ourselves, it could not have been more

to my taste: a river meanders through the grounds, distilling plenty and verdure from its fertilizing bosom; the

leafy honours of an umbrageous wood invite the midday walk, and qualify the temperature of the seasons.

What a heavenly abode of solitude and contemplation! Ah! my dear master, we shall act very foolishly if we

are in a hurry to run away from our happiness. I am delighted, answered I, that you are so well satisfied with

the retreat provided for us, though yet acquainted with only a small part of its attractions.

As we were chatting in this strain, we got nearer and nearer to the house, where the door opened, as by magic,

the moment Scipio announced Signor Gil Blas de Santillane, who was coming to take possession of his

estate. At the mention of this name, received with reverential homage by the people who had been instructed

in the transfer of their obedience, my carriage was admitted into a large court, where I alighted; then leaning

with all my weight upon Scipio, as if walking was a derogation from my dignity, and putting on the great

man after the most consequential models, I reached the hall, where, on my entrance, seven or eight servants

made their obeisances. They told me they were come to welcome their new master with their best loves and

duties: that Don Caesar and Don Alphonso de Leyva had chosen them to farm my establishment, one in

CH. III. Gil Blas sets out for Valencia, and arrives at Lirias; description of his seat; the particulars of his reception, and the characters of the inhabitants he found there. 298

quality of cook, another as undercook, a third as scullion, a fourth as porter, and the rest as footmen; with an

express injunction to receive no wages or perquisites, as those two noblemen meant to defray all the expenses

of my household. The cook, Master Joachim by name, was commanderin chief of this battalion, and

announced to me the whole array of the campaign; he declared that he had laid in a large stock of the choicest

wines in Spain, and insinuated that for the solid supply of the table, he flattered himself a person of his

education and experience, who had been six years at the head of my Lord Archbishop of Valencia's kitchen,

must know how to dish up a dinner so as to meet the ideas of the most fastidious layman in Christendom. But

the proof of the pudding is in the eating, added he; so I will just go and give you a specimen of my talent.

You had better take a walk, my lord, while dinner is getting ready: look about the premises; and see whether

The reader may guess whether I did not stir my stumps; and Scipio, still more eager than myself to take a

bird's eye inventory of our goods and chattels, dragged me back and fore from room to room. There was not a

corner of the house that we did not peep into, from the garret to the cellar: not a closet or a cranny, at least as

we supposed, could escape our prying curiosity; and in every fresh room we went into, I had occasion to

admire the kindness of Don Caesar and his son towards me. I was struck, among other things, with two

apartments, which were as elegantly furnished as they could be, without misplaced magnificence. One of

them was hung with tapestry, the celebrated manufacture of the Low Countries; the velvet bed and chairs

were still very handsome, though in the fashion of the time when the Moors possessed the kingdom of

Valencia. The furniture of the other room was in the same taste; to wit, an old suit of hangings, made of

yellow Genoa damask, with a bed and armchairs to match, fringed with blue silk. All these effects, which

would have furnished but a sorry display in an upholsterer's shop, made no contemptible appearance in their

After having rummaged over every article of the paraphernalia, my secretary and myself returned to the

diningroom, where the cloth was laid for two; we sat down; and in an instant they served up so delicious an

olla podrida, that we could not help revolving on the various turns of the fate below which had parted the

good Archbishop of Valencia from his cook. We had in truth a most catholic and ravenous appetite; a

circumstance which added new zest to our praises and enjoyments. Between every succeeding help my

servants, with all the alacrity of fresh and holiday service, filled our large glasses to the brim with wine, the

choicest vintage of La Mancha. Scipio, not thinking it genteel to express aloud the inward chucklings of his

heart at our dainty fare, winked and nodded his delight, and spoke by signs, which I returned with the like

dumb eloquence of overflowing satisfaction. The remove was a dish of roast quails, flanking a little leveret in

high order, just kept long enough; for this we left our hash, good as it was, and gorged ourselves to a surfeit

on the game. When we had eaten as if we had never eaten before, and pledged one another in due proportion,

we rose from table and went into the garden to look out for some cool, pleasant spot, and take our afternoon's

If hitherto my secretary had goggled satisfaction at what he had seen, he stared wider and grinned broader at

this vista vision of the garden. He scarcely allowed the comparison to be in favour of the Escurial. The reason

of its extreme niceness was that Don Caesar, who came backwards and forwards to Lirias, took pleasure in

improving and ornamenting it. All the walks well gravelled and lined with orange trees, a large reservoir of

white marble, with a lion in bronze spouting water like a dolphin's deputy in the middle, the beauty of the

flower borders, the profusion and variety of the fruit trees; such pretty particulars as these made Scipio smack

his lips and snuff the air; but his raptures reached their summit at the gradual descent of a long walk, leading

to the bailiff's cottage, and overarched by the interwoven boughs of the trees planted on each side. While

eulogizing a place so well adapted for a refuge from the intenseness of the heat, we made a halt, and sat down

at the foot of an elm, where sleep required very little cunning to entangle two highfed, halftipsy blades,

CH. III. Gil Blas sets out for Valencia, and arrives at Lirias; description of his seat; the particulars of his reception, and the characters of the inhabitants he found there. 299

In about two hours we were startled out of our sleep by the report of musketry, popping so near the

headquarters of our repose that we apprehended the camp to be attacked. On the alert! was the first idea that

invaded our dozing minds. That we might procure the most authentic intelligence, in what direction the

enemy was approaching, we directed our march towards the bailiff's tenement. There were collected eight or

ten clodhoppers, all friends and neighbours, assembled on the green for the purpose of honouring my arrival,

just communicated to the vacant senses of the said clodhoppers, by a discharge of fire arms, whose barrels

and furniture might thank me for the unusual favour of a thorough cleaning. The greater part of them were

acquainted with my person, having seen me more than once at the castle, while engaged in the business of my

stewardship. No sooner did they set eyes on me, than they all shouted in unison: Long life to our new lord

and master! welcome to Lirias! Then they loaded once again, and fired another volley in honour of the

occasion. My habits and manners were softened down to the most condescending urbanity, though with a

decorous infusion of distance, lest any degrading constructions might he put upon too unlimited a freedom of

address. With respect to my protection, I promised it according to the customary charter of newlyinstalled

possessors; and went so far as to throw them a purse of twenty pistoles: and this, in my opinion, was the point

of all others in my conduct which touched their hearts most nearly. After this benefaction, I left them at

liberty to waste as much powder as they pleased, and withdrew with my secretary into the wood, where we

walked to and fro till nightfall, without being at all tired of our rural prospect: so many charms had the view

of a landscape, heightened by the substantial beauties of ownership in feesimple, to our elevated and

The cook, the undercook, and the scullion were not resting upon their oars all this time: they were working

hard to fit up for us an artifice of belly timber more magnificent that what we had already demolished; so that

we were over head and ears in amazement, when on our return to the room where we had dined, we saw on

the table a dish of four roast partridges, with a smothered rabbit on one side, and a fricasseed capon on the

other. The second course consisted of pigs' ears, jugged game, and chocolate cream. We drank deeply of the

most delicious wines, and began to think of going to bed, when it became a matter of doubt whether we could

sit up any longer. Then my people, with lighted candles before me, led the way to the best bedroom, where

they were all most officious in assisting to undress me: but when they had tendered me my gown and

nightcap, I dismissed them with an authoritative undulation of my hand, signifying that their services were

Thus I sent them all about their business, keeping Scipio for a little private conference between ourselves;

and I led to it by asking him what he thought of my reception, as arranged by order of my noble patrons.

Indeed and indeed, answered he, the human heart could not devise anything more delicious. I only wish we

may go on as we have begun. I have no wish of the kind, re plied I: it is contrary to my principles to allow

that my benefactors should put themselves to so much expense on my account; it would be a downright fraud

upon their benevolence. Besides, I could never feel myself at home with servants in the pay of other people; it

is just like living in a lodging or an inn. Then it is to be remembered, that I did not come hither to live upon

so expensive a scale. What occasion have we for so large an establishment of servants? Our utmost want,

with Bertrand, is a cook, a scullion, and a footman. Though my secretary would not have been at all sorry to

table for a continuance at the governor of Valencia's expense, he did not oppose his own luxurious taste to my

moral delicacy, but conformed at once to my sentiments, and approved the reduction I was meditating to

introduce. That point being decided, he left my chamber, and betook himself to his pillow in his own.

I GOT my clothes off as soon as possible, and went to bed, where, finding no great inclination to sleep, I

communed with my own thoughts. The mutual attachment between the lords of Leyva and myself was

uppermost in the various topics of my contemplation. With my heart full of their late kindness, I determined

CH. IV. A journey to Valencia, and a visit to the lords of Leyva. The conversation of the gentlemen, and Seraphina's demeanour. 300

on setting out for their residence the next day, and quenching my impatience to thank them for their favours.

Neither was it a slender gratification to anticipate another interview with Seraphina; though there was

somewhat of alloy in that pleasure: it was impossible to reflect without shuddering, that I should at the same

time have to encounter the glances of Dame Lorenza Sephora, who might not be greatly delighted at the

renewal of our acquaintance, should her memory happen to stumble upon the circumstances connected with a

certain box on the ear. With my mind exhausted by all these different suggestions, my eyelids at length

closed, and the sun had peeped in at my window long before they turned upon their hinges.

I was soon out of bed; and dressed myself with all possible expedition, in the earnest desire of prosecuting

my intended journey. Just as I had finished my hasty operations, my secretary came into the room. Scipio,

said I, you behold a man on the point of setting out for Valencia. I ought to lose no time in paying my

respects to those noblemen to whom I am indebted for my little independence. Every moment of delay in the

performance of this duty throws a new weight of ingratitude on my conscience. As for you, my friend, there

is no necessity for your attendance; stay here during my absence; I shall come back to you within the space of

a week. Heaven speed you, sir! answered he be sure you do not slight Don Alphonso and his father

they seem to me to thrill with the kindly vibrations of friendship, and to be unbounded in their

acknowledgment of obligation: gratitude and benevolence are so uncommon in people of rank, that they

deserve to be made the most of where found. I sent a message to Bertrand, to hold himself in readiness for

setting out, and took my chocolate while he was harnessing the mules. When all was prepared, I got into my

carriage, after having directed my people to consider my secretary as master of the house in my absence, and

I got to Valencia in less than four hours, and drove at once to the governor's stables, where I alighted and left

my equipage. On going to the house, I was informed that Don Caesar and his son were together. I did not

wait for an introduction, but went in without ceremony; and addressing myself to both of them, Servants, said

I, never send in their names to their masters; here is an old piece of family furniture, not ornamental indeed,

but of a fashion when gratitude was neither out of date nor out of countenance. These words were

accompanied with an effort to throw myself on my knees; but they anticipated my purpose, and embraced me

one after the other with all possible evidence of sincere affection. Well, then, my dear Santillane, said Don

Alphonso, you have been at Lirias to take possession of your little property. Yes, my lord, answered I; and

my next request is, that you would be pleased to take it back again. What is your reason for that? replied he.

Is there anything about it at all offensive to your taste? Not in the place itself, rejoined I: on the contrary, that

is everything that my heart can wish; the only fault I have to find with it is, that the kitchen smells too

strongly of the hierarchy; a lay Christian should not live like an archbishop; besides that, there are three times

as many servants as are necessary, and consequently you are put to an expense at once enormous and useless.

Had you accepted the annuity of two thousand ducats which we offered you at Madrid, said Don Caesar, we

should have thought it enough to give you the mansion furnished as it is: but you know, you refused it; and

we felt it but right to do what we have done as an equivalent. Your bounty has been too lavish, answered I:

the gift of the estate was the utmost limit to which it should have been extended, and that was more than

sufficient to crown my largest wishes. But to say nothing about what it has cost you to keep up so great and

expensive an establishment, I declare to you most solemnly that these people stand in my way, and are a great

annoyance. In one word, gentlemen, either take back your boon, or give me leave to enjoy it in my own way.

I pronounced these last words so much as if I was in earnest, that the father and son, not meaning to lay me

under any unpleasant restraint, at length gave me their permission to manage my household as it should seem

I was thanking them very kindly for having granted me that privilege, without which a dukedom would have

been but splendid slavery, when Don Alphonso interrupted me by saying: My dear Gil Blas, I will introduce

you to a lady who will be extremely happy to see you. Thus preparing me for the interview, he took me by

the hand and led the way to Seraphina s apartment, who set up a scream of joy on recognizing me. Madam,

CH. IV. A journey to Valencia, and a visit to the lords of Leyva. The conversation of the gentlemen, and Seraphina's demeanour. 301

said the governor, I flatter myself that the visit of our friend Santillane at Valencia is not less acceptable to

you than myself. On that head, answered she, he may rest confidently assured; time has not obliterated the

remembrance of the service which he once rendered me and to that must be added a new debt of gratitude

incurred on the score of your obligations. I told the governor's lady that I was already too well requited for

the danger which I had shared in common with her deliverers, in exposing my life for her sake: compliments

to the like effect were bandied about for some time on both sides, when Don Alphonso motioned to quit

Seraphina's room. We then went back to Don Caesar, whom we found in the saloon with a fashionable party,

All these gentleman were introduced, and paid their compliments to me in the politest manner; nor did their

attentions relax in assiduity, when Don Caesar told them that I had been one of the Duke of Lerma's principal

secretaries. In all likelihood several of them might not be unacquainted that Don Alphonso had been

promoted to the government of Valencia by my interest, for political secrets are seldom kept. However that

might be, while we were at table, the conversation principally turned on the new cardinal. Some of the

company either were, or affected to be, his unqualified admirers, while others allowed his merit upon the

whole, but thought it had been rather overrated. I plainly saw through their design of drawing me on to

enlarge on the subject of his eminence, and to gratify their taste for scandal with court anecdotes at his

expense. I could have been well enough pleased to have delivered my real sentiments on his character, but I

kept my tongue within my teeth, and thereby passed in the estimation of the guests for a close, confidential,

The party respectively retired home after dinner to take their usual nap, what Don Caesar and his son,

For my own part, full of impatience to see a town which I had so often heard extolled for its beauty, I went

out of the governor's palace with the intention of walking through the streets. At the gate a man accosted me

with the following address: Will Signor de Santillane allow me to take the liberty of paying my respects to

him? I asked him who and what he was. I am Don Caesar's valetde chambre, answered he, but was one of

his ordinary footmen during your stewardship; I used to make my court to you every morning, and you used

to take a great deal of notice of me. I regularly gave you intelligence of what was passing in the house. Do

you recollect my apprising you one day that the village surgeon of Leyva was privately admitted into Dame

Lorenza Sephora's bedchamber? It is a circumstance which I have by no means forgotten, replied I. But now

that we are talking of that formidable duenna, what is become of her? Alas! resumed he, the poor creature

moped and dwindled after your departure, and at length gave up the ghost, more to the grief of Seraphina than

Don Caesar's valetdechambre, having thus acquainted me with Sephora's melancholy end, made an humble

apology for having presumed to stop my walk, and then left me to continue my progress. I could not help

paying the tribute of a sigh to the memory of that illfated duenna; and her decease affected me the more,

because I taxed myself with that melancholy catastrophe, though a moment's reflection would have

convinced me, that the grave owed its precious prey to the inroads of her cancer rather than to the cruel

I looked with an eye of pleasure upon everything worth notice in the town. The archbishop's marble palace

feasted my eyes with all the magnificence of architecture; nor were the piazzas which surrounded the

exchange much inferior in commercial grandeur; but a large building at a distance, with a great crowd

standing before the doors, attracted all my attention. I went nearer, to ascertain the reason why so great a

concourse of both sexes was collected, and was soon let into the secret by reading the following inscription in

letters of gold on a tablet of black marble over the door: La Posada de los Representantes [The theatre] . The

playbills announced for that day a new tragedy, never performed, and gave the name of Don Gabriel

CH. IV. A journey to Valencia, and a visit to the lords of Leyva. The conversation of the gentlemen, and Seraphina's demeanour. 302

I STOPPED for some minutes before the door, to make my remarks on the people who were going in. There

were some of all sorts and sizes. Here was a knot of genteellooking fellows, whose tailors at least had done

justice to their fashionable pretensions; there a mob of illfavoured and illmannered mortals, in a garb to

identify vulgarity. To the right was a bevy of noble ladies, alighting from their carriages to take possession of

their private boxes; to the left a tribe of female traders in lubricity, who came to sell their wares in the lobby.

This mixed concourse of spectators, as various in their minds as in their faces, gave me an itching inclination

to increase their number. Just as I was taking my check, the governor and his lady drove up. They spied me

out in the crowd, and having sent for me, took me with them to their box, what I placed myself behind them,

The theatre was filled with spectators from the ceiling downwards, the pit thronged almost to suffocation, and

the stage crowded with knights of the three military orders. Here is a full house! said I to Don Alphonso. You

are not to consider that as anything extraordinary, answered he; the tragedy now about to be produced is from

the pen of Don Gabriel Triaquero, the most fashionable dramatic writer of his day. Whenever the playbill

announces any novelty from this favourite author, the whole town of Valencia is in a bustle. The men as well

as the women talk incessantly on the subject of the piece: all the boxes are taken; and, on the first night of

performance, there is a risk of broken limbs in getting in, though the price of admission is doubled, with the

exception of the pit, which is too authoritative a part of the house for the proprietors to tamper with its

patience. What a paroxysm of partiality! said I to the governor. This eager curiosity of the public, this

hotheaded impatience to be present at the first representation of Don Gabriel's pieces, gives me a

At this period of our conversation the curtain rose. We immediately left off talking, to fix our whole attention

on the stage. The applauses were rapturous even at the prologue: as the performance advanced, every

sentiment and situation, nay, almost every line of the piece called forth a burst of acclamation; and at the end

of each act the clapping of hands was so loud and incessant, as almost to bring the building about our ears.

After the dropping of the curtain, the author was pointed out to me, going about from box to box, and with all

the modesty of a successful poet, submitting his head to the imposition of those laurels, which the genteeler,

We returned to the governor's palace, where we were met by a party of three or four gentlemen. Besides these

mere amateurs, there were two veteran authors of considerable eminence in their line, and a gentleman of

Madrid with tolerably fair claims to critical authority and judgment They had all been at the play. The new

piece was the only topic of conversation during supper time. Gentlemen, said a knight of St James, what do

you think of this tragedy? Has it not every claim to the character of a finished work? Thoughts that breathe,

and words that burn, a hand to touch the true chords of pity, and sweep the lyre of poetry; requisites how

rarely, and yet how admirably united! In a word, it is the performance of a person mixing in the higher circles

of society. There can be no possible difference of opinion on that subject, said a knight of Alcantara. The

piece is full of strokes which Apollo himself might have aimed, and of perplexities contrived so that none but

the author himself could have unravelled them. I appeal to that acute and ingenious stranger, added he,

addressing his discourse to the Castilian gentleman; he looks to me like a good judge, and I will lay a wager

that he is on my side of the question. Take care how you stake on an uncertainty, my worthy knight, answered

the gentleman with a sarcastic smile. I am not of your provincial school; we do not pass our judgment so

hastily at Madrid. Far from sentencing a piece on its first representation, we are jealous of its apparent merit

while aided by scenic deception; our fancies and our feelings may be carried away for the moment, but our

serious decision is suspended till we have read the work; and the most common result of its appeal to the

CH. V. Gil Blas goes to the play, and sees a new tragedy. The success of the piece. The public taste at Valencia. 303

Thus you perceive, pursued he, that it is our practice to examine a work of genius closely before we stamp on

it the mark of a stock piece: its author's fame, let it ring as loudly as it may, can never confound our exactness

of discrimination. When Lope de Vega himself or Calderona ventured on the boards, they encountered rigid

critics, though in an audience which doted on them: critics who would not sign their passport to the regions of

That is a little too much, interrupted the knight of St James. We are not quite so cautious as you. It is not our

custom to wait for the printing of a piece in order to decide on its reputation. By the very first performance it

sinks or swims. It does not even seem necessary to be inconveniently attentive to the business of the stage. It

is sufficient that we know it for a production of Don Gabriel, to be persuaded that it combines every

excellence. The works of that poet may justly be considered as commencing a new era, and fixing the

criterion of good taste. The school of Lope and Calderona was the mere cart of Thespis, compared with the

polished scenes of this great dramatic master. The gentleman, who looked up to Lope and Calderona as the

Sophocles and Euripides of the Spaniards, could not easily be brought to acknowledge such wild canons of

criticism. This is dramatic heresy with a vengeance! exclaimed he. Since you compel me, gentlemen, to

decide like you on the fallacious evidence of a first night, I must tell you that I am not at all satisfied with this

new tragedy of your Don Gabriel. As a poem it abounds more with glittering conceits than with passages of

pathos or delineations of nature. The verses, three out of four, are defective either in measure or rhyme; the

characters, clumsily imagined or incongruously supported; and the thoughts have often the obscurity of a

The two authors at table, who, with a prudence equally commendable and unusual, had said nothing for fear

of lying under the imputation of jealousy, could not help assenting to the last speaker's opinions by their

looks; which warranted me in concluding that their silence was less owing to the perfection of the work than

to the dictates of personal policy. As for the military critics, they got to their old topic of ringing the changes

on Don Gabriel, and exalted him to a level with the undertenants of Olympus. This extravagant association

with the demigods, this blind and stiffnecked idolatry, divorced the Castilian from his little stock of

patience, so that, raising his hands to heaven, he broke out abruptly into a volley of enthusiasm: O divine

Lope de Vega, sublime and unrivalled genius, who has left an immeasurable space between thee and all the

Gabriels who would light their tapers from thy bright effulgence! and thou, mellow, softvoiced Calderona,

whose elegance and sweetness, rejecting buskined rant and tragic swell, reign with undisputed sway over the

affections, fear not, either of you, lest your altars should be overturned by this tonguetied nurseling of the

muses! It will be the utmost of his renown, if posterity, before whose eyes your works shall live in daily

view, and form their dear delight, shall enrol his name, as. matter of history and curious record, on the list of

This animated apostrophe, for which the company was not at all prepared, raised a hearty laugh, after which

we all rose from table and withdrew. An apartment had been got ready for me by Don Alphonso's order,

where I found a good bed; and my lordship, lying down in luxurious weariness, went to sleep upon the tag of

the Castilian gentleman's impassioned vindication, and dreamed most crustily of the injustice done to Lope

As I had not been able to complete my view of the city on the preceding day, I got up betimes in the morning

with the intention of taking another walk. In the street I remarked a Carthusian friar, who doubtless was thus

early in motion to promote the interests of his order, He walked with his eyes fixed on the ground, and a gait

so holy and contemplative, as to inspire every passenger with religious awe. His path was in the same

CH. VI. Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity, whose pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be. 304

direction as mine, I looked at him with more than ordinary curiosity, and could not help fancying it was Don

Raphael, that man of shifts and expedients, who has already secured so honourable a niche in the temple of

I was so utterly astonished, so thrown off my balance by this meeting, that instead of accosting the monk, I

remained motionless for some seconds, which gave him time to get the start of me. Just heaven! said I, were

there ever two faces more exactly alike? I do not know what to make of it! It seems incredible that Raphael

should turn up in such a guise! And yet how is it possible to be any one else! I felt too great a curiosity to get

at the truth not to pursue the inquiry. Having ascertained the way to the monastery of the Carthusians, I

repaired thither immediately, in the hope of coming across the object of my search on his return, and with the

full intent of stopping and parleying with him. But it was quite unnecessary to wait for his arrival to enlighten

my mind on the subject: on reaching the convent gate, another physiognomy, such as few persons had read

without paying for their lesson, resolved all my doubts into certainty; for the friar who served in the capacity

of porter was unquestionably my old and godlyvisaged servant, Ambrose de Lamela.

Our surprise was equal on both sides at meeting again in such a place. Is not this a play upon the senses? said

I, paying my compliments to him. Is it actually one of my friends who presents himself to my astonished

sight? He did not know me again at first, or probably might pretend not to do so; but reflecting within himself

that it was in vain to deny his own identity, he assumed the start of a man who all at once hits upon a

circumstance which had hitherto escaped his recollection, Ah, Signor Gil Blas! exclaimed he, excuse my not

recognizing your person immediately. Since I have lived in this holy place, every faculty of my soul has been

absorbed in the performance of the duties prescribed by our rules, so that by degrees I lose the remembrance

After a separation of ten years, said I, it gives me much pleasure to find you again in so venerable a garb. For

my part, answered he, it fills me with shame and confusion to appear in it before a man who has been an

eyewitness of my guilty courses. These ghostly weeds are at once the charm of my present life, and the

condemnation of my former. Alas! added he, heaving a righteous sigh, to be worthy of wearing it, my earlier

years should have been passed in primitive innocence. By this discourse, so rational and edifying, replied I, it

is plain, my dear brother, that the finger of the Lord has been upon you, that you are marked out for a vessel

of sanctification. I tell you once again, I am delighted at it, and would give the world to know in what

miraculous manner you and Raphael were led into the path of the righteous; for I am persuaded that it was his

own self whom I met in the town, habited as a Carthusian. I was extremely sorry afterwards not to have

stopped and spoken to him in the street; and I am waiting here to apologize for my neglect on his return.

You were not mistaken, said Lamela, it was Don Raphael himself whom you saw; and as for the particulars

of our conversion, they are as follow: After parting with you near Segorba, we struck into the Valencia road,

with the design of bettering our trade by some new speculation. Chance or destiny one day led our steps into

the church of the Carthusians, while service was performing in the choir. The demeanour of the brethren

attracted our notice, and we experienced in our own persons the involuntary homage which vice pays to

virtue. We admired the fervour with which they poured forth their devotions, their looks of pious

mortification, their deadness to the pleasures of the world and the flesh, and in the settled composure of their

While making these observations, we fell into a train of thought which became like manna to the hungry and

thirsty soul: we compared our habits of life with the employments of these holy men, and the wide difference

between our spiritual conditions filled us with confusion and affright. Lamela, said Don Raphael, as we went

out of church, how do you stand affected by what we have just seen? For my part, there is no disguising the

truth, my mind is ill at ease. Emotions, new and indescribable, are rushing upon my mind: and, for the first

time in my life, I reproach myself with the wickedness of my past actions. I am just in the same temper of

soul, answered I; my iniquities are all drawn up in array against me, they beset me, they stare me in the face;

CH. VI. Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity, whose pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be. 305

my heart, hitherto proof against all the arrows of remorse, is at this moment shot through, torn and disfigured,

tormented and destroyed. Ah! my dear Ambrose, resumed my partner, we are two stray sheep, whom our

Heavenly Father, in mercy, would lead back gently to the fold. It is he himself, my child, it is he who warms

and guides us. Let us not be deaf to the call of his voice; let us abandon all our wicked courses, let us begin

from this day to work out our salvation with diligence and in the spirit of repentance: we had better spend the

remainder of our days in this convent, and consecrate them to penitence and devotion.

I applauded Raphael's sentiment, continued brother Ambrose; and we formed the glorious resolution of

becoming Carthusians. To carry it into effect, we applied to the venerable prior, who was no sooner made

acquainted with our purpose, than to ascertain whether our call was front the world above or the world

beneath, he appointed us to cells, and all the strictness of monkish discipline, for a whole year. We acted up

to the rules with equal regularity and fortitude, and, by way of reward, were admitted among the novices. Our

condition was so much what we wished it, and our hearts were so full of religious zeal, that we underwent the

toils of our noviciate with unflinching courage. When that was over, we professed; after which, Don Raphael,

appearing admirably well qualified, both by natural talent and various experience, for the management of

secular concerns, was chosen assistant to an old friar who was at that time proctor. The son of Lucinda would

infinitely have preferred dedicating every remaining moment of his existence to prayer; but he found it

necessary to sacrifice his taste for devotion, in furtherance of the general prosperity. He entered with so much

zeal and knowledge into the interests of the house, that he was considered as the most eligible person to

succeed the old proctor, who died three years afterwards. Don Raphael accordingly fills that office at present;

and it may be truly said that he discharges his duty to the entire satisfaction of all our fathers, who praise in

the highest terms his conduct in the administration of our temporalities. What is most of all miraculous, and

shews the hand of heaven in his conversion, is that, with such an accumulation of business rushing in upon

him in his bursarial department, his regards are inalienably fixed on the world to come. When business leaves

him but a moment to recruit nature, instead of lavishing the short period in indulgence, his thoughts wing

their way into the regions of devout and holy meditation. In short, he is the most exemplary member of this

At this period of our conversation I interrupted Lamela by an ebullition of joy to which I gave vent at the

sight of Raphael coming in. Here he is! exclaimed I: behold that righteous bursar for whom I have been so

impatiently waiting. With a leap and a bound did I run to meet and embrace him. He submitted to the hug

with his newlyacquired resignation; and, without betraying the slightest shock at meeting with an old

companion of his profaner hours, his words were dictated by the spirit of gentleness and humility: The

powers above be praised, Signor de Santillane, the powers be praised for this kind providence whereby we

meet again. In good truth, my dear Raphael, replied I, your happy destiny pleases me as much as if it had

been my own good luck; brother Ambrose has told me the whole story of your conversion, and the tale

almost moved me to a similar change. What a glorious lot for you two, my friends, when you have reason to

flatter yourselves with being among that picked number of the elect, who have eternal happiness thrust upon

Two miserable sinners like ourselves, resumed the son of Lucinda, with an air which marked the extreme of

sanctified morality, must not hope that our own merits are of weight enough to save our souls; but even the

wicked one who repenteth, findeth grace with the Father of mercies. And you, Signor Gil Blas, added he, is it

not time to lay in a claim for pardon of the offences which you have committed? What is your business here

in Valencia? Are you not hankering after some office of devil's deputy, and making shipwreck of your

voyage to another world? Not so, by the blessing of heaven, answered I; since I turned my back on the court,

I have led a very moral sort of life: sometimes enjoying rural recreations on an estate of mine at a few leagues

distance from this town, and sometimes coming hither to pass my time with my friend the governor, whom

CH. VI. Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity, whose pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be. 306

On this cue I related to them the story of Don Alphonso de Leyva. They heard the particulars with attention;

and on my telling them that I had carried to Samuel Simon, on the part of that nobleman, the three thousand

ducats of which we had robbed him, Lamela interrupted the thread of my narrative, and addressing his

discourse to Raphael, said: Father Hilary, if this be true, the honest vendor of wares has no reason to quarrel

with a robbery which has paid him fifty per cent; and our consciences, as far as that indictment goes, may

bask in the sunshine of acquitted innocence. Brother Ambrose and I, said the bursar, did actually, on the

assumption of the habit, send Samuel Simon fifteen hundred ducats privately, by a pious ecclesiastic who

made a pilgrimage to Xelva for the sole purpose of accomplishing this restitution; but it will go hard with

Samuel at the general reckoning, if he for filthy lucre could soil his fingers with that sum, after having been

reimbursed in full by Signor de Santillane. But, said I, how do you know that your fifteen hundred ducats

were faithfully paid into his hands? Unquestionably they were! exclaimed Don Raphael; I would answer for

the disinterested purity of that ecclesiastic as soon as for my own. I would be your collateral security, said

Lamela; he is a priest of the strictest sanctity, a sort of universal almoner; and though many times cited for

sums of money, deposited with him for charitable uses, he has always nonsuited the plaintiff and gone out of

Our conversation continued for some time longer: at length we parted, with many a pious exhortation on their

side, always to have the fear of the Lord before my eyes, and with many an earnest intreaty on mine, that they

would remember me constantly in their prayers. Don Alphonso was now the first object of my search. You

will never guess, said I, with whom I have just had a long conference. I am but now come from two venerable

Carthusians of your acquaintance; the name of the one is father Hilary, that of the other, brother Ambrose.

You are mistaken, answered Don Alphonso; I am not acquainted with a single Carthusian. Pardon me, replied

I; you have seen brother Ambrose at Xelva in the capacity of commissary, and father Hilary as register to the

Inquisition. Oh heaven! exclaimed the governor with surprise, can it be within the bounds of possibility that

Raphael and Lamela should have turned Carthusians? It is even so, answered I; they professed several years

The son of Don Caesar rubbed his forehead twice or thrice, then shaking his bead, These worshipful officers

of the Inquisition, said he, most assuredly purpose playing over the old farce on a new stage here. You judge

of them by prejudice, answered I, from the impression of their characters as men of sin: but had you been

edified by their lectures as I have been, you would think more favourably of their holiness. To be sure, it is

not for mortal men to fathom the depth of other men's hearts; but to all appearance they are two prodigals

returned home. It possibly may be so, replied Don Alphonso: there are many instances of libertines, who hide

their heads in cloisters, after having scandalized human nature by their obliquities, to expiate their offences

by a severe penance: I heartily wish that our two monks may be such libertines restored.

Well! and why not? said I. They have embraced the monastic life of their own accord, and have squared their

conduct for a length of time according to the maxims of their order. You may say what you please, retorted

the governor; but I do not like the convent's rents being received by this father Hilary, of whom I cannot help

entertaining a very untoward opinion. When the fine story he told us of his adventures comes across my

mind, I tremble for the reverend brotherhood. I am willing to believe with you, that he has taken the vow with

the pious intention of keeping it; but the blaze of gold may be too much for the weakness of his regenerated

In the course of a few days Don Alphonso's misgivings were fully justified; these two official props and stays

of the establishment ran away with the year's revenue. This news, which was immediately noised about the

town, could not do otherwise than set the tongues of the wits in motion; for they always make themselves

merry at the crosses and losses of the wellendowed religious orders. As for the governor and myself, we

condoled with the Carthusians, but kept our acquaintance with the apostate pilferers in the background.

CH. VI. Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity, whose pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be. 307

I PASSED a week at Valencia in the first company, living on equal terms with the best of the nobility. Plays,

balls, concerts, grand dinners, ladies' parties, all things that heart could wish or vanity grow tall upon, were

provided for me by the governor and his lady, to whom I paid my court so dexterously, that they were

heartily sorry to see me set out on my return to Lirias. They even obliged me, before they would let me go, to

engage for a division of my time between them and my hermitage. It was determined that I should spend the

winter in Valencia, and the summer at my seat. After this bargain, my benefactors left me at liberty to tear

myself from them, and go where their kindness would be always staring me in the face.

Scipio, who was waiting impatiently for my return, was ready to jump out of his skin for joy at the sight of

me; and his ecstasies were doubled at my circumstantial account of the journey. And now for your history,

my friend, said I, taking breath: to what moral uses have you turned the solitary period of my absence? Has

the time passed agreeably? As well, answered he, as it could with a servant to whom nothing is so dear as the

presence of his master. I have walked over our little domain, circuitously and diagonally: sometimes seated

on the margin of a fountain in our wood, I have taken pleasure in be holding the transparency of its waters,

which are as pellucid as those of the sacred spring, whose projection from the rock made the vast forest of

Albunea to resound with the roar of the cascade: sometimes lying at the foot of a tree, I have listened to the

song of the linnet or the nightingale. At other times I have hunted or fished; and, what has given me more

rational delight than all these pastimes, I have whiled away many a profitable hour in the improvement of my

I interrupted my secretary in a tone of eager inquiry, to ask where he had procured books. I found them, said

he, in an elegant library here in the house, whither master Joachim took me. Heyday! in what corner, resumed

I, can this said library be? Did we not go over the whole building on the day of our arrival? You fancied so,

rejoined he; but you are to know that we only explored three sides of the square, and forgot the fourth. It was

there that Don Caesar, when he came to Lirias, employed part of his time in reading. There are in this library

some very good books, left as a neverfailing phylactery against the blue devils, when our gardens despoiled

of Flora's treasure, and our woods of their leafy honours, shall no longer challenge those miscreant invaders

to combat in the forest or the bower. The lords of Lena have not done things by halves, but have catered for

This intelligence filled me with sincere rapture. I was shewn to the fourth side of the square, and feasted with

an intellectual banquet Don Caesar's room I immediately determined to make my own. That nobleman's bed

was still there, with correspondent furniture, consisting of historical tapestry, representing the rape of the

Sabine women by the Romans. From the bedchamber, I went into a closet fitted up with low bookcases well

filled, and over them the portraits of the Spanish kings. Near a window whence you command a prospect of a

most bewitching country, there was an ebony writingdesk and a large sofa, covered with black morocco.

But I gave my attention principally to the library. It was composed of philosophers, poets, historians; and

abounded in romances. Don Caesar seemed to give the preference to that light reading, if one might judge by

the profusion of supply. I must own, to my shame, that my taste was not at all above the level of those

productions, notwithstanding the extravagances they delight in stringing together; whether it was owing to

my not being a very critical reader at that time, or because the Spaniards are naturally addicted to the

marvellous. I must nevertheless plead in my own justification, that I was alive to the charms of a sprightly

and popular morality, and that Lucian, Horace, and Erasmus became my favourite and standard authors.

My friend, said I to Scipio, when my eyes had coursed over my library, here is wherewithal to feed and

pamper our minds; but our present business is to reform our household. On that subject I can spare you a

great deal of trouble, answered he. During your absence I have sifted your people thoroughly, and flatter

CH. VII. Gil Blas returns to his seat at Lirias. Scipio's agreeable intelligence, and a reform in the domestic arrangements. 308

myself it is no empty boast to say that I know them. Let us begin with master Joachim: I take him to be as

great a scoundrel as ever breathed, and have no doubt but he was turned away from the archbishop's for errors

which were too great to be excepted in the passing of his accounts. Yet we must keep him for two reasons:

the first, because he is a good cook; and the second, because I shall always have an eye over him; I shall peep

into his actions like a jackdaw into a marrowbone, and he must be a more cunning fellow than I take him

for, to evade my vigilance. I have already told him that you intended discharging threefourths of your

establishment. This declaration stuck in his stomach; and he assured me that, owing to his extreme desire of

living with you, he would be satisfied with half his present wages rather than be turned off, which made me

suspect that he was tied to the string of some petticoat in the hamlet, and did not like to break up his quarters.

As for the undercook, he is a drunkard, and the porter a foulmouthed Cerberus, of whose guardianship our

gates are in no want; neither is the gamekeeper a necessary evil. I shall take the latter office myself, as you

may see tomorrow, when we have got our fowlingpieces in order, and are provided with powder and shot.

With regard to the footmen, one of them is an Arragonese, and to my mind a very good sort of fellow. We

will keep him; but all the rest are such rapscallions, that I would not advise you to harbour one of them, if you

After having fully debated the point, we resolved to keep well with the cook, the scullion, the Arragonese,

and to get rid of the remainder as decently as we could: all which was planned and executed on the same day,

mollifying the bitter dose by the application of a few pistoles, which Scipio took from our strong box, and

distributed among them as from me. When we had carried this reform into effect, order was soon established

in our mansion; we divided the business fairly among our remaining people, and began to look into our

expenses. I could willingly have been contented with very frugal commons; but my secretary, loving high

dishes and relishing bits, was not a man who would suffer master Joachim to hold his place as a sinecure. He

kept his talents in such constant play, working double tides at dinner and at supper, that any one would have

thought we had been converted by father Hilary, and were working out the term of our probation.

Two days after my return from Valencia to Lirias, clodpole Basil, my farming man, came at my

dressingtime, to beg the favour of introducing his daughter Antonia, who was very desirous, as he said, to

have the honour of paying her respects to her new master. I answered that it was very proper, and would be

well received. He withdrew, and in a few minutes returned with his peerless Antonia. That epithet, though

bold, will not be thought extravagant, in the case of a girl from sixteen to eighteen years of age, uniting to

regular features the finest complexion and the brightest eyes in the world. She was dressed in nothing better

than a stuff gown; but a stature somewhat above the female standard, a dignified deportment, and such graces

as soared higher than the mere freshness and glow of youth, communicated to her rustic attire the simplicity

of classical costume. She had no cap on her head; her hair was fastened behind with a knot of flowers,

When she illumined my chamber with her presence, I was struck as much on a heap by her beauty, as ever

were the princes, knights, nobles, and strangers assembled at the solemn feast and tournament of Charlemain,

by the personal charms of Angelica. Instead of receiving Antonia with modish indifference, and paying her

compliments of course, instead of ringing the changes on her father's happiness in possessing so lovely a

daughter, I stood stock still, staring, gaping, stammering: I could not have uttered an articulate sound for the

universal world. Scipio, who saw clearly what was the matter with me, took the words out of my mouth, and

accepted those bills of admiration which my affairs were in too much disorder to admit of my duly honouring

For her part, my figure being shrouded by a dressinggown and nightcap, like the orb of day by a winter

fog, she accosted me without being shamefaced, and paid her duty in terms which fired all the combustibles

in my composition, though her words were but the holiday expressions of commonplace salutation. In the

mean time, while my secretary, Basil, and his daughter, were engaged in reciprocal exchange of civility, I

found my senses again; and passed from one extreme of absurdity to another, just as if I had thought that a

harebrained loquacity would be a setoff against the idiotic silence of my first encounter. I exhausted all my

stock of wellbred rodomontade; and expressed myself with so unguarded a freedom, as to make Basil look

about him: so that he, with his eye upon me as a man who would set every engine at work to seduce Antonia,

was in a hurry to get her safely out of my apartment, with a resolved purpose, probably, of withdrawing her

Scipio finding himself alone with me, said with a smile: Here is another defence for you against the blue

devils! I did not know that your farming man had so pretty a daughter; for I had never seen her before, though

I have been twice at his house. He must have taken infinite pains to keep her out of the way, and it is

impossible to be angry with him for it What the plague! here is a morsel for a liquorish palate! But there

seems to be no necessity for blazoning her perfections to you; their very first glance dazzled you out of

countenance. I do not deny it, answered I. Ah! my beloved friend, I have surely seen an inhabitant of the

realms above; the electrical spark now thrills through all my frame, it scorches like lightning, yet tingles like

You slight me beyond measure, replied my secretary, by giving me to understand that you have at length

fallen in love. Nothing but a mistress was wanting to complete your rural establishment at all points. Thanks

to Heaven, you are now likely to be accommodated in every way. I am well aware that we shall have a hard

matter to elude Basil's vigilance; but leave that to me, and I will undertake before the end of three days to

manage a private meeting for you with Antonia. Master Scipio, said I, it is not so sure that you would be able

to keep your word; but at all events, I have not the least desire to make the experiment I will have nothing to

do with the ruin of that girl; for she is an angel, and does not deserve to be numbered among the fallen ones.

Therefore, instead of laying the guilt upon your soul of assisting me in her dishonour, I have made up my

mind to marry her with your kind help, supposing her heart not to be pre occupied by a prior attachment I

had no idea, said he, of your directly plunging headlong into the cold bath of matrimony. The generality of

landlords, in your place, would stand upon the ancient tenure of manorial rights: they would not deal with

Antonia upon the square of modern law and gospel, till after failure in the establishment of their feudal

privileges. But though this may be the way of the world, do not suppose that I am by any means against your

honourable passion, or at all wish to dissuade you from your purpose. Your bailiff's daughter deserves the

distinction you design for her, if she can give you the firstfruits of her heart, an offering of sensibility and

gratitude; that is what I shall ascertain this very day by talking with her father, and possibly with her.

My agent was a man to transact his business according to the letter. He went to see Basil privately, and in the

evening came to me in my closet, where I waited for him with impatience, somewhat exasperated by

apprehension. There was a slyness in his countenance, whence my prognostic inclined to the brighter side.

Judging, said I, by that look of suppressed merriment, you are come to acquaint me that I shall soon be at the

summit of human bliss. Yes, my dear master, answered he, the heavens smile upon your vows. I have talked

the matter over with Basil and his daughter, declaring your intentions without reserve. The father is delighted

at the idea of your asking his blessing as a sonin law; and you may set your heart at rest about Antonia's

taste in a husband. Darts and flames! cried I in an ecstacy of amorous transport; what! am I so happy as to

have made myself agreeable to that lovely creature? Never question it, replied he; she loves you already. It is

true, she has not owned so much by word of mouth; but my assurance rests on the taletelling sparkle of her

eye, when your proposals were made known to her. And yet you have a rival! A rival! exclaimed I, with a

faltering voice, and a cheek blanched with fear. Do not let that give you the least uneasiness, said he; your

competitor cannot bid very high, for he is no other than master Joachim your cook. Ah! the hangdog! said I,

with an involuntary shout of laughter: this is the reason, then, why he had so great an objection to being

turned out of my service. Exactly so, answered Scipio; within these few days he made proposals of marriage

to Antonia, who politely declined them. With submission to your better judgment, replied I, it would be

expedient, at least so it strikes me, to get rid of that strange fellow, before he is informed of my intended

match with Basil's daughter: a cook, as you are aware, is a dangerous rival. You are perfectly in the right,

rejoined my trusty counsellor; we must clear the premises of him he shall receive his discharge from me

tomorrow morning, before he puts a finger in the fricandeaus; thus you will have nothing more to fear either

from his poisonous sauces or bewitching tongue. Yet it goes rather against the grain with me to part with so

good a cook; but I sacrifice the interests of my own belly to the preservation of your precious person. You

need not, said I, take on so for his loss: he had no exclusive patent; and I will send to Valencia for a cook,

who shall outcook all his fine cookery. According to my promise I wrote immediately to Don Alphonso, to

let him know that our kitchen wanted a prime minister; and on the following day he filled up the vacancy in

so worthy a manner, as reconciled Scipio at once to the change in culinary politics.

Though my adroit and active secretary had assured me of Antonia's secret selfcongratulation on the

conquest of her landlord's heart, I could not venture to rely solely on his report. I was fearful lest he should

have been entrapped by false appearances. To be more certain of my bliss, I determined on speaking in

person to the fair Antonia. I therefore went to Basil's house, and confirmed to him what my ambassador had

announced. This honest peasant, of patriarchal simplicity and goldenaged frankness, after having heard me

through, did not hesitate to own that it would be the greatest happiness of his life to give me his daughter;

but, added he, you are by no means to suppose that it is because you are lord of the manor. Were you still

steward to Don Caesar and Don Alphonso, I should prefer you to all other suitors who might apply: I have

always felt a sort of kindness towards you: and nothing vexes me, but that Antonia has not a thumping

fortune to bring with her. I want not the vile dross, said I; her person is the only dowry that I covet. Your

humble servant for that, cried he; but you will not settle accounts with me after that fashion; I am not a

beggar, to marry my daughter upon charity. Basil de Buenotrigo is in circumstances, by the blessing of

Providence, to portion her off decently; and I mean that she should set out a little supper, if you are to be at

the expense of dinners. In a word, the rental of this estate is only five hundred ducats: I shall raise it to a

Just as you please, my dear Basil, replied I; we are not likely to have any dispute about money matters. We

are both of a mind; all that remains is to get your daughter's consent. You have mine, said he, and that is

enough. Not altogether so, answered I; though yours may he absolutely necessary, no business can be done

without hers. Hers follows mine of course, replied he; I should like to catch her murmuring against my

sovereign commands. Antonia, rejoined I, with dutiful submission to paternal authority, is ready without

question to obey your will implicitly in all things; but I know not whether in the present instance she would

do so without violence to her own feelings; and should that be the case, I could never forgive myself for

being the occasion of unhappiness to her; in short, it is not enough that I obtain her hand from you, if her

heart is to heave a sigh at the decision of her destiny. Oh, blessed virgin! said Basil, all these fine doctrines of

philosophy are far above my reach; speak to Antonia your own self, and you wilt find, or I am very much

mistaken, that she wishes for nothing better than to be your wife. These words were no sooner out of his

mouth than he called his daughter, and left me with her for a few short minutes.

Not to trifle with so precious an opportunity, I broke my mind to her at once: Lovely Antonia, said I, it

remains with you to fix the colour of my future days. Though I have your father's consent, do not think so

meanly of me as to suppose that I would avail myself of it to violate the sacred freedom of your choice.

Rapturous as must be the possession of your charms, I waive my pretensions if you but tell me that your duty

and not your will complies. It would be affectation to put on such a repugnance, answered she; the honour of

your addresses is too flattering to excite any other than agreeable sensations, and I am thankful for my

father's tender care of me, instead of demurring to his will. I am not sure whether such an acknowledgment

may not be contrary to the rules of female reserve in the polite world; but if you were disagreeable to me, I

should be plainspoken enough to tell you so; why, then, should I not be equally free in owning the kind

feelings of my heart? At sounds like these, which I could not bear without being enraptured, I dropped on my

knee before Antonia, and in the excess of my tender emotions, taking one of her fair hands, kissed it with an

affectionate and impassioned action. My dear Antonia, said I, your frankness enchants me; go on, let nothing

induce you to depart from it; you are conversing with your future husband; let your soul expand itself, and

reveal all its inmost emotions in his presence. Thus, then, may I entertain the flattering hope that you will not

frown on the union of our destinies! The coming in of Basil at this moment prevented me from giving further

vent to the delightful sensations which thrilled through me. Impatient to know how his daughter had behaved,

and ready primed for scolding in case she had been perverse or coy, he made up to me immediately. Well,

now! said he, are you satisfied with Antonia? So much so, answered I, that I am going this very moment to

set forward the preparations for our marriage. So saying, I left the father and daughter, for the purpose of

THOUGH there was no occasion to consult with the lords of Leyva about my marriage, yet both Scipio and

myself were of opinion that I could not decently do otherwise than communicate to them my purpose of

connecting myself with Basil's daughter, and just pay them the compliment of asking their advice, after the

I immediately went off for Valencia, where my visit was a matter of surprise, and still more the purport of it

Don Caesar and Don Alphonso, who were acquainted with Antonia, having seen her more than once, wished

me joy on my good fortune in a wife. Don Caesar, in particular, made his speech upon the occasion with so

much youthful fire, that if there had not been reason to suppose his lordship weaned, by that icy moralist,

time, from certain naughty propensities, I should have suspected him of going to Lirias now and then, not so

much to look after his concerns there, as after his little empress of the dairy. Seraphina, too, with the kindest

assurances of a lively interest in whatever might befall me, said that she had heard a very favourable

character of Antonia; but, added she, with a malicious fling, as if to taunt me with my supercilious reception

of Sephora's amorous advances, even though her beauty had not been so much the talk of the country, I could

have depended on your taste, from former experience of its delicacy and fastidiousness.

Don Caesar and his son did not stop at cold approbation of my marriage, but declared that they would defray

all the expenses of it. Measure back your steps, said they, to Lirias, and stay quietly there till you hear further

from us. Make no preparation for your nuptials, for we shall make that our concern. To meet their kind

intentions with becoming gratitude, I returned to my mansion, and acquainted Basil and his daughter with the

projected kindness of our patrons. We determined to wait their pleasure with as much patience as falls to the

lot of poor human nature under such circumstances. Eight long days dragged out their tedious measure, and

brought no tidings of our bliss. But the rewards of selfcontrol are not the less assured for being slow: on the

ninth, a coach drawn by four mules drove up, with a cargo of mantuamakers for the bride, and an assortment

of rich silks on which to exercise their art. Several livery servants, mounted on mules, accompanied the

cavalcade. One of them brought me a letter from Don Alphonso. That nobleman sent me word that he would

be at Lirias next day with his father and his wife, and that the marriage ceremony should he performed on the

day after that, by the vicargeneral of Valencia. And just so it came to pass: Don Caesar, his son, and

Seraphina, with that venerable dignitary, were punctual to their appointment; all four of them in a coach and

six; none of your mules, like the mantuamakers! preceded by an other coach and four, with Seraphina's

The governor's lady had hardly entered the house before she testified an ardent longing to see Antonia, who

on her part no sooner knew that Seraphina was arrived, than she ran forward to bid her welcome, with a

respectful kiss upon her hand, so gracefully and modestly impressed, that all the company were enchanted at

the action. And now, madam! said Don Caesar to his daughterinlaw, what do you think of Antonia? Could

Santillane have made a better choice? No, answered Seraphina, they are worthy each of the other; there can

be no doubt but their union will be most happy. In short, every one was lavish in the praise of my intended;

and if they felt her beams so powerfully under the eclipse of a stuff gown, what must they not have endured

CH. IX. Nuptials of Gil Blas with the fair Antonia; the style and manner of the ceremony; the persons assisting thereat; and the festivities ensuing there upon. 312

from her brightness, in the meridian sunshine of her wedding finery? One would have fancied she had been

clothed in silks, jewels, and fine linen from her cradle, by the dignity of her air and the ease of her

The happy moment which was to unite two fond lovers in the bands of Hymen being arrived, Don Alphonso

took me by the hand and led me to the altar, while Seraphina conferred the like honour on the bride elect. Our

procession had marched in fit and decent order through the hamlet to the chapel, where the vicargeneral was

waiting to go through the service; and the ceremony was performed amidst the heartfelt congratulations of the

inhabitants, and of all the wealthy farmers in the neighbourhood, whom Basil had invited to Antonia's

wedding. Their daughters too came in their train, tricked out in ribbons and in flowers, and dancing to the

music of their own tambourines. We returned to the mansion under the same escort: and there, by the

provident attentions of Scipio, who officiated as high steward and master of the ceremonies, we found three

tables set out; one for the principals of the party, another for their household, and the third, which was by far

the largest, for all invited guests promiscuously. Antonia was at the first, the governor's lady having made a

point of it; I did the honours of the second, and Basil was placed at the head of that where the country people

dined. As for Scipio, he never sat down, but was here, there, and everywhere, fetching and carrying, changing

plates and filling bumpers, urging the company to call freely for what they wanted, and egging them on to

The entertainment had been prepared by the governor's cooks; and that is as much as to say, that there were

all the delicacies imaginable, in season or out of season. The good wines laid in for me by master Joachim,

were set running at a furious rate; the guests were beginning to feel their jovial influence, pleasantry and

repartee gave a zest and conviviality, when on a sudden our harmony was interrupted by an alarming

occurrence. My secretary, being in the hall where I was dining with Don Alphonso's principal officers and

Seraphina's women, suddenly fainted. I started up and ran to his assistance; and while I was employed in

bringing him about, one of the women was taken ill also. It was evident to the whole company that this

sympathetic malady must involve some mysterious incident, as in effect it turned out almost immediately,

that thereby hung a tale; for Scipio soon recovered, and said to me in a low voice, Why must one man's meat

be another man's poison, and the most auspicious of your days the curse of mine? But every man bears the

bundle of his sins upon his back, and my packsaddle is once more thrown across my shoulders in the person

Powers of mercy! exclaimed I, this can never be; it is all a romance. What! you the husband of that lady

whose nerves were so affected by the disturbance? Yes, sir, answered he, I am her husband; and fortune, if

you will take the word of a sinner, could not have done me a dirtier office than by conjuring up such a

grievance as this. I know not, my friend, replied I, what reasons you may have for thus belabouring your rib

with wordy buffets, but however she may be to blame, in mercy keep a bridle on your tongue; if you have any

regard for me, do not displace the mirth and spoil the pleasure of this nuptial meeting, by ominous disorder or

enraged questions of past injuries. You shall have no reason to complain on that score, rejoined Scipio; but

With this assurance he went forward to his wife, whom her companions had also brought back to life and

recollection; and, embracing her with as much apparent fervour as if his raptures had been real, Ah, my dear

Beatrice, said he, heaven has at length united us again after ten years of cruel separation! But this blissful

moment is well purchased by whole ages of torturing suspense! I know not, answered his spouse, whether

you really are at all the happier for having recovered a part of yourself: but of this at least I am fully certain,

that you never had any reason to run away from me as you did. A fine story indeed! You found me one night

with Signor Don Ferdinand de Leyva, who was in love with my mistress Julia, and consulted me on the

subject of his passion; and only for that, you must take it into your stupid head, that I was caballing with him

against your honour and my own: thereupon that poor brain of yours was turned with jealousy; you quitted

Toledo in a huff, and ran away from your own flesh and blood as you would from a monster of the deserts,

CH. IX. Nuptials of Gil Blas with the fair Antonia; the style and manner of the ceremony; the persons assisting thereat; and the festivities ensuing there upon. 313

without leaving word why or wherefore. Now which of us two, be so good as to tell me, has most reason to

take on and be pettish? Your own dear self, beyond all question, replied Scipio. Beyond all question,

reechoed she, my own illused self. Don Ferdinand, very shortly after you had taken yourself off from

Toledo, married Julia, with whom I continued as long as she lived; and, after we had lost her by sudden

death, I came into my lady her sister's service, who, as well as all her maids, and I would do as much for

them, will give me a good character; honest and sober, and a very termagant among the impertinent fellows.

My secretary, having nothing to allege against such a character from my lady and her maids, was determined

to make the best of a bad bargain. Once for all, said he to his spouse, I acknowledge my bad behaviour, and

beg pardon for it before this honourable assembly. It was now time for me to act the mediator, and to move

Beatrice for an act of amnesty, assuring her that her husband from this time forward would make it the great

object of his life to play the husband to her satisfaction. She began to see that there was reason in roasting of

eggs, and all present were loud in their congratulations, on the triumph of suffering virtue, and the renovated

pledge of broken vows. To bind the contract firmer, and make it memorable, they were seated next to one

another at table; their healths were drank according to the laws of toasting; wish you joy! many returns of this

happy day! rang round on every side: one would have sworn that the dinner was given for their reconciliation,

The third table was the first to be cleared. The young villagers jumped up in a body; the lads took out their

blooming partners; the tambourines struck up a merry beat; spectators flocked from the other tables, and

caught the enlivening spirit from the gay bustle of the scene. Every limb and muscle of every individual was

in motion: the household of the governor and his lady formed a set, apart from the rustics of the company,

while their superiors did not disdain to mingle with the homelier dancers. Don Alphonso danced a saraband

with Seraphina, and Don Caesar another with Antonia, who afterwards took me for her partner. She did not

perform much amiss, considering that she never got much further than the five positions, in learning which

she had her ankles kicked to pieces by a provincial dancingmaster at Albarazin, while on a visit to a

tradesman's wife, one of her relations. As for me, who, as I have already said, had taken lessons at the

Marchioness de Chaves's, I figured away as the principal man in this rural ballet. With regard to Beatrice and

Scipio, they preferred a little private conversation to dancing, that they might compare notes on the subject of

war and tear during the painful period of separation: but their billing and cooing was interrupted by

Seraphina, who, having been informed of this dramatic discovery, sent for them to pay the customary

compliments of congratulation. My good people, said she, on this day of general joy, it gives me additional

pleasure to see you two restored to one another. My friend Scipio, I return you your wife under a firm belief

that she has always conducted herself as became a woman; take up your abode with her here, and be a good

husband to her. And you, Beatrice, attach yourself to Antonia, and let her be as much the object of your

devoted service as Signor de Santillane is that of your husband. Scipio, who could not possibly, after this,

think of Penelope as fit to hold a candle to his own wife, promised to treat her with all the deference due to

The country people, having kept up the dance till late, withdrew to their own homes; but the rejoicings were

prolonged by the company in the house. There was a grand supper, and at bedtime the vicargeneral

pronounced the blessing of consummation. Seraphina undressed the bride, and the lords of Leyva did me the

same honour. The ridiculous part of the business was, that Don Alphonso's officers and his lady's attendants

took it into their heads, by way of diverting themselves, to perform the same ceremony: they also undressed

Beatrice and Scipio, who, to render the scene supremely farcical, gravely allowed themselves to be untrussed,

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 314

ON the day after the wedding the lords of Leyva returned to Valencia, after having lavished on me a thousand

marks of friendship. There was such a general clearance, that my secretary and myself, with our respective

wives, and our usual establishment, were left in undisturbed possession of our own home.

The efforts which we both made to please our ladies were not thrown away: I breathed by degrees into the

partner of my joys and sorrows as much love for me as I entertained for her; and Scipio made his better part

forget the woes and privations he had occasioned her. Beatrice, who had very winning ways with her, and

was all things to all women, had no difficulty about worming herself into the good graces of her new

mistress, and gaining her complete confidence. In short, we all four agreed admirably well together, and

began to enjoy a bliss above the common lot of humanity. Every day rolled along more delightfully than the

last. Antonia was pensive and demure; but Beatrice and myself were enlisted in the crew of mirth; and even

though we had been constitutionally sedate, Scipio was among us, and he was of himself a pill to purge

melancholy. The best creature in the world for a snug little party! one of those merry drolls who have only to

shew their comical faces, and set the table in a roar of inextinguishable laughter.

One day, when we had taken a fancy to go after dinner, and doze away the usual interval in the most

sequestered spot about the grounds, my secretary got into such exuberant spirits, as to chase away the drowsy

god by his exhilarating sallies. Do hold your tongue, my loquacious friend, said I: or else, if you are

determined to wage war against this lazy custom of our afternoons, at least tell us something which we shall

he the wiser for hearing. With all my heart and soul, sir, answered he. Would you have me go through all

fabulous histories of wandering knights, distressed damsels, giants, enchanted castles, and the whole train of

legendary adventures? I had much rather hear your own true history, replied I; but that is a pleasure which

you have not thought fit to give me so long as we have lived together, and I seem likely to go without it to the

end of the chapter. How happens that? said he. If I have not told you my own story, it is because you never

expressed the slightest wish to be troubled with the recital: therefore it is not my fault if you are in the dark

about my past life; but if you are really at all curious to be let into the secret, my loquacity is very much at

your service on the occasion. Antonia, Beatrice, and myself, unanimously took him at his word, and arranged

ourselves for listening like an attentive audience. The speculation was a safe one on our parts; for the tale was

I certainly ought to have been descended, said Scipio, from some family of the highest rank and earliest

antiquity; or in default of such parentage, from the most distinguished orders of personal merit, such as that

of St James or Alcantara, if a man may be permitted to decide on the fittest circumstances his own birth: but

as it is not among the privileges of human nature to elect one's own father, you are to know that mine, by

name Torribio Scipio, was a subaltern myrmidon of the Holy Brotherhood. As he was going back and fore on

the king's highway, and looking after business in his own line, he met once on a time, between Cuen�a and

Toledo, with a young Bohemian babe of chance, who appeared very pretty in his eyes. She was alone, on

foot, and carried her whole patrimony at her back in a kind of knapsack. Whither are you going, my little

darling? said he in a philandering tone of voice, unlike the natural hoarseness of his accents. Good worthy

gentleman, answered she, I am going to Toledo, where I hope to gain an honest livelihood by hook or by

crook. Your intentions are highly commendable, retorted he; and I doubt not but you have many a hook and

many a crook among the implements of your trade. Yes, with a blessing on my endeavours, rejoined she: I

have several little ways of doing for myself: I know how to make washes and creams for the ladies' faces,

perfumes for their noses and their chambers; then I can tell fortunes, can search for things lost with a sieve

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 315

Torribio, concluding that so wellprovided a girl would be a very advantageous match for a man like himself,

who could scarcely scrape wherewithal to support life by his own profession, though he was as good a

thieftaker as the best of them, made her an offer of marriage, and she was nothing loth, nor prudishly coy.

They flew on the wings of inclination and convenience to Toledo, where they were joined together; and you

behold in me the happy pledge of holy and lawful matrimony. They fixed themselves in a shop on the

outskirts of the town, where my mother commenced her career by selling the said washes, creams, tapes,

laces, silk, thread, toys, and pedlar's ware; but trade not being brisk enough to live comfortably by it, she

turned fortuneteller. This drew her customers, got her countenance, credit, crowns, and pistoles: a thousand

dupes of either sex soon trumpeted up the reputation of Coselina; for so my gipsy mamma had the honour to

be named. Some one or other came every day to bargain for the exercise of her skill in the black art: at one

time a nephew at his wit's and purse's end, wanting to know how soon his uncle was to set off post for the

other world, and leave behind him wherewithal to piece his wornout fortunes: at another, some yielding,

lovesick girl, to inquire whether the swain who kept her company, and had promised to marry her, would

You will take notice, if you please, that my mother always sold good luck for good money; if the

accomplishment trod on the heels of the prediction, well and good; if it was fulfilled according to the rule of

contraries, she was always cool, though the parties were ever so violently in a passion, and told them plainly

that it was her familiar's fault, not hers; for though she paid him the highest wages, and bound him by potent

spells to stir up the cauldron of futurity from the bottom, like earthly cooks, he would sometimes be careless

When my mother thought the conjuncture momentous enough to raise the devil without cheapening him in

the eyes of the vulgar, Torribio Scipio enacted his infernal majesty, and played the part just as if he had been

born to it, humouring the hideous features of the character by a very small aggravation of his own natural

face, and practising the pandemonian note of elocution in the lower octave of his voice. A person in the

slightest degree superstitious would be scared out of his senses at my father's figure. But one day, as his

satanic prototype would have it, there came a savage rascal of a captain, who asked to see the devil, for no

earthly purpose but to run him clean through the body. The Inquisition, having received notice of the devil's

death, sent to take charge of his widow, and administer to his effects; as for poor little me, just seven years

old at the time, I was sent to the foundling hospital. There were some charitable ecclesiastics on that

establishment, who, being liberally paid for the education of the poor orphans, were so zealous in their office

as to teach them reading and writing. They fancied there was something particularly promising about me,

which made them pick me out from all the rest, and send me on their errands. I was lettercarrier, messenger,

and chapel clerk. As a token of their gratitude, they undertook to teach me Latin; but their mode of tuition

was so harsh, and their discipline so severe, though I was a sort of pet with them, that, not being able to stand

it any longer, I ran away one morning while out on an errand; and, so far from returning to the hospital, got

Though I had not then completed my ninth year, I already felt the pleasure of being free, and master of my

own actions. I was without money and without food; no matter! I had no lessons to say by heart, no themes to

hammer out. After having pushed on for two hours, my little legs began to refuse their office. I had never

before made so long a trip. It became necessary to stop and take some rest. I sat myself down at the foot of a

tree close by the high. way; there, by way of amusement, I took my grammar out of my pocket, and began

conning it over by way of a joke; but at length, coming to recollect the raps on the knuckles, and the

castigations on the more classical seat of punishment which it had cost me, I tore it leaf by leaf with an

apostrophe of angry import. Ah! you odious thing of a book! you shall never make me shed tears any more.

While I was assuaging my vindictive spirit, by strewing the ground about me with declensions and

conjugations, there passed that way a hermit with a white beard, with a large pair of spectacles on his nose,

and altogether an outside of much sanctity. He came up to me; and, if I was an object of speculation to him,

he was no less so to me. My little man, said he with a smile, it should seem as if we had both taken a sudden

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 316

liking to each other, and in that case we cannot do better than to live together in my hermitage, which is not

two hundred yards distant. Your most obedient for that, answered I pertly enough; I have not the least desire

to turn hermit. At this answer, the good old man set up a roar of laughter, and said with a kind embrace: You

must not be frightened at my dress; if it is not becoming, it is useful; it gives me my title to a charming

retreat, and to the goodwill of the neighbouring villages, whose inhabitants love or rather idolize me. Come

this way, and I will clothe you in a jacket of the same stuff as mine. If you think well of it, you shall share

with me the pleasures of the life I lead; and, if it does not hit your fancy, you shall not only be at liberty to

leave me, but you may depend on it that in the event of our parting, I shall not fail to do something handsome

I suffered myself to be persuaded, and followed the old hermit, who put several questions to me, which I

answered with a truth telling simplicity, not always to be found in a more advanced stage of morality. On

our arrival at the hermitage he set some fruit before me, which I devoured, having eaten nothing all day but a

slice of dry bread, on which I had breakfasted at the hospital in the morning. The recluse, seeing me play so

good a part with my jaws, said: Courage, my good boy, do not spare my fruit; there is plenty of it, Heaven be

praised. I have not brought you hither to starve you. And indeed that was true enough; for an hour after our

coming in, he kindled a fire, put a leg of mutton down to roast; and while I turned the spit, laid a small table

When the meat was done enough he took it up, and cut some slices for our supper, which was no dry bargain,

since we quaffed a delicious wine, of which he had laid in ample store. Well! my chicken, said he, as he rose

from table, are you satisfied with my style of living? You see how we shall fare every day, if you fix your

quarters here. Then with respect to liberty, you shall do just as you please in this hermitage. All I require of

you is to accompany me whenever I go begging to the neighbouring villages; you will be of use in driving an

ass laden with two panniers, which the charitable peasants usually fill with eggs, bread, meat, and fish. I ask

no more than that. I will do, said I, whatever you desire, provided you will not oblige me to learn Latin. Friar

Chrysostom, for that was the old hermit's name, could not help smiling at my schoolboy frowardness, and

assured me once more that he should not pretend to interfere either with my studies or my inclinations.

On the very next day we went on a foraging party with the donkey, which I led by the halter. We made a

profitable gleaning; for all the farmers took a pleasure in throwing somewhat into our panniers. One chucked

in an uncut loaf; another a large piece of bacon; here a goose, there a pair of giblets, and a partridge to crown

the whole. But without entering further into particulars, we carried home provender enough for a week; and

hence you may infer the esteem and friendship in which the country people held the holy man. It is true that

he was a great blessing to the neighbourhood: his advice was always at their service when they came to

consult him: he restored peace where discord had reigned in families, and made up matches for the daughters;

he had a nostrum for almost any disease you could mention, with an assortment of pious rituals, to avert the

Hence you perceive that I was in no danger of starving in my hermitage. My lodging, too, was none of the

worst: stretched on good fresh straw, with a cushion of ratteen under my head, and a coverlet over me of the

same stuff I made but one nap of it all night. Brother Chrysostom, who had promised me a hermit's dress,

made up an old gown of his own for me, and called me little brother Scipio. No sooner did I appear in my

religious uniform, than the ass's back suffered for my genteel appearance in the eyes of the villagers. It was

who should give most to the little brother! so much were they delighted with his spruce figure.

The easy, slothful life I led with the old hermit could not be very revolting to a boy of my age. On the

contrary, it suited my taste so exactly, that I should have continued it to this time, but that the fates and

destinies were weaving a more complicated tissue for my future years. It was cast in the figure of my nativity,

early to rouse myself from the effeminacy of a religious life, and to take leave of brother Chrysostom after

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 317

I often observed the old man at work upon his pillow, unsewing and sewing it up again; and one day, I saw

him put in some money. This circumstance excited a tingling curiosity, which I promised myself to satisfy

the first time he went to Toledo, as he generally did once a week. I waited impatiently for the day, but as yet,

without any other motive than the mere desire of prying. At last the good man went his way, and I unpicked

his pillow, where I found, among the stuffing, the amount of about fifty crowns in all sorts of coin.

This treasure must have accumulated from the gratitude of the peasantry, whom the hermit had cured by his

nostrums, and of their wives, who had be come pregnant by virtue of his spiritual interference. But however it

got there, I no sooner set my eyes on the money, which might be mine without any one near me to say nay,

than the gipsy voice of nature and pedigree spoke within me. An inextinguishable itch of pilfering tingled in

my veins, and proved that we come into the world with the mark of our descent, and with our characters

about us. I yielded to the temptation without a struggle; tied up my booty in a canvas bag where we kept our

combs and nightcaps: then, having laid aside the hermit's and resumed my foundling's dress, got clear off

from the hermitage, and hugged my bag as though it had contained the boundless treasure of the Indies.

You have heard my first exploit, continued Scipio; and I doubt not but you will expect a succession of similar

practices. Your anticipations will not be disappointed; for there are many such evidences of genius behind,

before I come to those of my actions which prove me good as well as clever; but I shall come to them, and

you will be convinced by the sequel, that a scoundrel born may be licked into virtue, as the cub of a bear into

Child as I was, I knew better than to take the Toledo road; it would have been exposing myself to the hazard

of meeting friar Chrysostom, who would have balanced accounts with me on a very thriftless principle. I

therefore travelled in another direction leading to the village of Galves, where I stopped at an inn, kept by a

landlady who was a widow of forty, and hung out the bunch of grapes to a very good purpose. This good

woman no sooner kenned me, than, judging by my dress that I must be a truant from the orphan school, she

asked who I was and whither I was going. I answered that, having lost my father and mother, I was looking

for a place. Can you read, my dear? said she. I assured her that I could read, and write too, with the best of

them. In point of fact, I could just form my letters, and join them so as to look a little like writing; and that

was clerkship enough for a village pothouse. Then I will take you into my service, replied the hostess. You

may earn your board easily enough, by scoring up the customers, and keeping my ledger. I shall give you no

wages, because this inn is frequented by very genteel company, who never forget the waiters. You may

I clenched the bargain, reserving to myself, as you may suppose, the right of emigration whenever my abode

at Galves should cease to be pleasant. No sooner was I settled in my place, than a weight lay heavy on my

mind. I did not wish it to be known that I had money; and it was no easy matter to devise where it could be

hidden, so as that what was sauce for the goose should not be sauce for the gander. I was not yet well enough

acquainted with the house to trust the places obviously most proper for such a deposit. What a source of

embarrassment is great wealth! I determined, however, on a corner of our granary under some straw; and

believing it to be safer there than anywhere else, made myself as easy about it as I well could.

The household consisted of three servants: a lubberly ostler, a young Galician chambermaid, and myself.

Each of us spunged what we could upon travellers, whether on foot or on horseback. I always came in for

some small change, when the bill was paid. Then the equestrians gave something to the ostler, for taking care

of their beasts: but as for our female fellowservant, the muleteers who passed that way chucked her under

the chin, and gave her more crowns than we got farthings. I had no sooner realized a penny, than away it

went to the granary, and slept with its precursors; so that the higher rose my heap, the more greedy did my

little heart become. Sometimes would I kiss the hallowed images of my idolatry, and look at them with a

devotional glow, which few worshippers feel, but those whose religion is their gold.

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 318

This inordinate passion sent me back and fore to gratify it, at least thirty times a day. I often met the landlady

on the staircase. She, being naturally of a suspicious temper, had a mind to find out one day what could carry

me every minute to the cornloft. She therefore went up and began rummaging about everywhere, supposing

perhaps that it was my receptacle for articles purloined in the house. Of course she did not forget to pull the

straw about; and behold, there was my bag! Two hands in a dish and one in a purse, was not one of her

proverbs; so that finding the contents in crowns and pistoles, she thought, or seemed to think, that the money

was lawfully and honestly hers. At least she had possession, and that is nine points of the law, though

scarcely one of honesty. But to do the thing decently, after calling me little wretch, little rascal, and so forth,

she ordered the ostler, a fellow without any will but hers, to give me a hearty flogging; and then turn me out

of doors, with this salt eel for my breakfast, and a ladylike oath that no light fingered gentry should ever

darken her doors. In vain did I protest and vow that I never wronged my mistress: she affirmed the direct

contrary, and her word would go further than mine at any time. Thus were friar Chrysostom's savings

I wept over the loss of my money, as a father over the death of his only son: and though my tears could not

bring back what I had lost, they at least answered the purpose of exciting pity in some people, who saw how

bitterly they flowed, and among others in the parson, who was accidentally going by. He seemed affected by

my sad plight, and took me home with him. There, to gain my confidence, or rather to pump me, he began

soothing my sorrows. How much this poor child is to be pitied! said he. Is it any wonder if, thrown upon the

wide world at so tender an age, he has committed a bad action? Grown up men are not always proof against

the flesh or the devil. Then, addressing me, Child, added he, front what part of Spain do you come, and who

are your parents? You have the look of family about you. Open your heart to me confidentially, and depend

His reverence, by this kind and insinuating language, engaged me by degrees to tell him all my history,

without falsification or reserve. I owned everything; and thus he moralized on the leading article of my

confession: My little friend, though hermits ought to lay up such treasures as neither force nor fraud can wrest

from them, that was no excuse for your taking the measure of punishment into your own hands: by robbing

brother Chrysostom, you nevertheless sinned against that article of the decalogue, which tells you not to steal;

but I will engage to make the hostess return the money, and will punctually remit it to the reverend friar at his

hermitage: you may therefore make your conscience perfectly easy on that score. Now, between ourselves,

my conscience was perfectly callous to everything like compunction with respect to the crime in question.

The parson, who had his own ends to answer, had not done with me yet. My lad, pursued he, I mean to take

you by the hand, and find a good berth for you. I shall send you tomorrow morning, by the carrier, to my

nephew, a canon of Toledo. He will not refuse, at my request, to admit you upon his establishment, where

they live like so many sons of the church, rosily, merrily, and fatly, upon the rents of his prebendal stall: you

Patronage like this gave me so much encouragement, that I did not throw away another thought either upon

my bag or my whipping. My mind was wholly occupied with the idea of living rosily, merrily, and fatly, like

a son of the church. The following day, at breakfasttime, there came, according to orders, a muleteer to the

parsonage, with two mules saddled and bridled. They helped me to mount one, the muleteer flung his leg over

the other, and we trotted on for Toledo. My fellowtraveller was a good, pleasant companion, arid desired

nothing better than to indulge his humour at the expense of his neighbour. My little volunteer, said he, you

have a good friend in his reverence, the minister of Galves. He could not give you a better proof of his

kindness, than by placing you with his nephew the canon, whom I have the honour of knowing, far beyond all

question or comparison, to be the cock of the chapter, and a hearty one he is. None of your lanternjawed

saints, with Lent in his face, a catofninetails on his back, and a cholera morbus in his belly. No such

thing! Our doctor is rubicund in the jowl, efflorescent on the nose, with a wicked eye at a bumper or a girl

militant against no earthly pleasure, but most addicted to the good things of the table. You will be as snug

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 319

This hangman of a muleteer, perceiving with what exquisite satisfaction I took in all this, went on tantalizing

me with the joys of an ecclesiastical life. He never dropped the subject till we got to the village of Obisa, and

stopped there to refresh our mules. Then, while bustling about the inn, he accidentally dropped a paper from

his pocket, which I was cunning enough to pick up without his seeing me, and took an opportunity of reading

while he was in the stable. It was a letter addressed to the governors and superintendents of the orphan

school, conceived in these terms: "Gentlemen, I consider it as an act at once of charity and of duty, to send

you back a little truant; he seems a shrewd lad enough, and may do very well with good looking after. By dint

of hard and frequent chastisement, I doubt not but you will ultimately bring him to a sense of his own

unworthiness and your benevolence. May a blessing be vouchsafed on your pious and charitable labours, for

When I had finished reading this pleasant letter, which let me into the good intentions of his reverence the

rector, it required little deliberation to determine what I was to do: from the inn to the banks of the Tagus, a

space of three good miles, was but a hop, step, and jump. Fear lent me wings to escape from the governors of

the foundling hospital, whither I was absolutely resolved never to return, having formed principles of taste

diametrically opposite to their method of teaching the classics. I went into Toledo with as light a heart as if I

had known where to get my daily bread. To be sure, it is a town of ways and means, where a man who can

live by his wits need never die of hunger. Scarcely had I reached the high street, when a well dressed

gentleman by whom I brushed, caught me by the arm, saying: My little fellow, do you want a place? You are

just such a smart lad as I was looking for. And you are just the master for my money, answered I. Since that

is the case, rejoined he, you are mine from this moment, and have only to follow me, which I did without

This spark, about the age of thirty, and bearing the name of Don Abel, lodged in very handsome

readyfurnished apartments. He was by profession a blacklegs; and the following was the nature of our

engagement. In the morning I got him as much tobacco as would smoke five or six pipes; brushed his clothes,

and ran for a barber to shave him and trim his whiskers; after which he made the circle of the tenniscourts,

whence he never returned home till eleven or twelve at night. But every morning, at going out, he gave me

three reals for the expenses of the day, leaving me master of my own time till ten o'clock in the evening; and

provided I was withindoors by his return, all was well. He gave me a livery besides, in which I looked like a

little lackey of illicit love. I took very kindly to my condition, and certainly could not have met with any more

Such and so happy had been my way of life for nearly a month, when my employer inquired whether I liked

his service; and on my answer in the affirmative, Well, then, resumed he, tomorrow we shall set out for

Seville, whither my concerns call me. You will not be sorry to see the capital of Andalusia. "He that hath not

Seville seen," says the proverb. "Is no traveller I ween." I engaged at once to follow him all over the world.

On that very day, the Seville carrier fetched away a large trunk with my master's wardrobe, and on the next

Signor Don Abel was so lucky at play, that he never lost but when it was convenient; but then it was seldom

convenient to stay long in a place, because those who are always losers find out at last, that though chance is

a dangerous antagonist, certainly it is a desperate one; and that accounted for our journey. On our arrival at

Seville, we took lodgings near the Cordova gate, and resumed the same mode of life as at Toledo. But my

master found some difference between the two towns. The Seville tenniscourts could produce players

equally in fortune's good graces with himself; so that he sometimes came home a good deal out of humour.

One morning, when he was biting the bridle for the loss of a hundred pistoles the day before, he asked why I

had not carried his linen to the laundress. I pleaded forgetfulness. Thereupon, flying into a passion, be gave

me halfadozen boxes on the ear, in such a style, as to kindle an illumination in my blinking eyes, to which

the glories of Solomon's temple were no more to be compared, than the torches in a Candlemas procession to

a rushlight. There is for you, you little scoundrel! said he; take that, and learn to mind your business. Must I

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 320

be eternally at your heels to remind you of what you are to do? Are your brains in your belly, and all your

wits in your grinders? You are not a downright idiot! Then why not prevent my wants and anticipate my

orders? After this experimental lecture, he went out for the day, leaving me in high dudgeon, at a reprimand

so much in the manner of my friend the ostler, for such a trifle as not getting up his things for the wash.

I could never learn what happened to him a short time after at a tenniscourt; but one evening he came home

in a terrible heat. Scipio, said he, I am bent on going to Italy, and must embark the day after tomorrow on

board a vessel bound for Genoa. I have my reasons for making this little excursion; of course you will be glad

to attend me, and to profit by so fine an opportunity of seeing the loveliest country on the face of the earth.

My tongue gave consent; but with a salvo in my heart and a bargain with my revenge, to give him the slip

just at the moment of embarkation. This was so delightful a scheme, that I could not help imparting it to a

bully by profession, whom I met in the street. During my abode in Seville, I had picked up some awkward

acquaintance, and this was one of the most ungainly. I told him how and why my ears had been boxed, and

then communicated my project of running away from Don Abel just before the ship was to sail, begging to

My bluff adviser puckered his eyebrows while he listened, and fiddled with his fingers about his whiskers:

then, blaming my master very seriously, My little hero, said he, you are eternally disgraced, can never shew

your face again, if you sit down quietly with so paltry a satisfaction as what you propose. To let Don Abel go

off by himself, would be a poor revenge for wrongs like yours; the punishment should be proportioned to his

crime. Let us fine him to the full amount of his purse and effects, which we will share like brothers after he is

gone. Now it is to be noted, that though thieving fell in very naturally with the bent of my genius, the

proposal rather startled me, as the robbery was upon a large scale for so young an apprentice.

And yet the arch deceiver of my innocence found the means of working me up to the perpetration, so that the

result of our enterprise was as follows. This glorious ruffian, a tall, brawny fellow, came in the evening about

twilight to our lodging. I shewed my master's travelling trunk ready packed, and asked him whether he could

carry so heavy a load upon his shoulders. So heavy as that! said he: shew me where a transfer of property is

to be made in my favour, and I could run with Noah's ark to the top of Mount Ararat. To prove his words, he

felt the trunk, flung it carelessly over his back, and scampered downstairs, I followed nimbly; and we had

just got to the street door, when Don Abel, brought home in the nick of time by the ascendancy of his lucky

Whither are you going with that trunk? said he. I was so taken by surprise that my assurance failed me; and

broadshoulders, finding that he had drawn a blank in the lottery, threw down his booty, and took to his

heels, rather than be troubled for an explanation. Once more, whither are you going with that trunk? said my

master. Sir, answered I, with all the honest simplicity of a criminal, pleading in arrest of judgment, I was

going to put it on board the vessel, that we might have the less to do to morrow, before we embark

ourselves. Indeed! Then you know, retorted he, in what ship I have taken my passage? No, sir, replied I! but

those who can talk Latin may always find their way to Rome: I should have inquired at the port, and

somebody would have informed me. At this explanation, which left his opinion where it found it, he darted a

furious glance at me. I thought for all the world, he was going to cuff me again about the head. Who ordered

you, cried he, to take my trunk out of this house? You, your own self; said I. Can you possibly have forgotten

how you rated me but a few days ago? Did you not tell me, with a flea in my ear, that you would have me

prevent your wants, and do beforehand from my own head whatever your service might require? Now, not to

be threshed a second time for want of forethought, I was seeing your trunk safe and soon enough on board.

On this the gamester, finding that I had cut my teeth of wisdom sooner than suited his purpose, turned me off

very coolly, saying: Go about your business, master Scipio, and speed as you may deserve. I do not like to

play with folks who are in the habit of revoking. Get out of my sight, or I shall set your solfeggio in a crying

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 321

I spared him the trouble of telling me to go twice. Off I shot like an arrow, for fear he should unfledge me, by

taking away my livery. When distant enough to slacken my pace, I walked along in the streets, musing

whither I might betake myself for a night's lodging, with only two reals in my pocket. The gate of the

archbishop's palace at length stared me in the face; and, as his grace's supper was then dressing, a savoury

odour exhaled from the kitchens, impregnating the gale with soup and sauce for a mile round. Ods haricots

and cutlets! thought I, it would be no hard matter for me to dispense with one of those little side dishes,

which will be of no use to the archbishop but to make out the figure of his table: nay, I would be contented

only just to dip in my four fingers and thumb, and then to sup like a bear upon suckings. But how to

accomplish it! Is there no way of bringing these choice morsels to a better test than that of smell? And why

not? Hunger, they say, will break through stone walls. On this idea did I set my wits to work; and, by dint of

conning over the subject, a stratagem struck me, which set my lungs as well as appetite in motion, just as the

old carpenter kept bawling, "I have found it," like a madman, when he had hit the right nail of his proposition

on the head. I ran into the court of the palace, and made the best of my way to the kitchens, calling out with

At my reiterated cries master Diego, the archbishop's cook, ran with three or four kitchen drudges to learn

what was the matter; and seeing only me, asked why I roared so loud. Ah! good sir, answered I, with every

token of exquisite distress, for mercy's sake and for St Polycarp's! save me, I beseech you, from the fury of a

blusterer, who swears he will kill me. But where is this disturber of the public peace? cried Diego. You have

no one to quarrel with but yourself; for I do not see so much as a cat to spit at you. Go your ways, my little

man, and do not be afraid; it is evidently some wag who has been playing upon your cowardice for his

diversion; but he knew better than to follow you within these walls, for we would have cut his ears off at the

least. No, no, said I, it was for no laughing matter that he ran after me. He is a noted footpad, and meant to

rob me; I am certain that he is now waiting for me at the corner of the street. Then he may wait long enough,

replied the knight of the iron spit; for you shall stay here till tomorrow. You shall sup with us, and we will

I was out of my little wits with joy at the mention of these last tidings; and it was like the turnpike road to

paradise after crossing an Arabian desert, when being led by master Diego through the kitchens, I there saw

my lord archbishop's supper, and the stewpans in the last throes of parturition. There were fifteen

accountable souls, for I reckoned them up, in attendance on the labour; but the litter of dishes far

outnumbered the fecundity of nature in her most prolific mood: so much more gracious and bountiful is

providence to the heads of the church in the indulgence of their appetites, than mindful of the worthless brute

creation in the propagation of its kind. Here it was, at the fountainhead of prelacy, inhaling an atmosphere

of gravy, instead of just snuffing the scent as it lay upon the breeze, that I first shook hands with sensuality. I

had the honour of supping with the scullions, and of sleeping in their room; an initiation of friendship so

sincere and strong, that on the following day, when I went to thank master Diego for his goodness in

vouchsafing me a refuge, he said: Our kitchen lads have been with me in a body, to declare how excessively

delighted they are with your manners, and to propose having you among them as a fellowservant. How

should you, on your part, like to make one of the society? I answered that, with such a feather in my cap, I

should be the vainest and the happiest of mortals. Then so be it, my friend, replied he; consider yourself

henceforth as a buttress of the hierarchy. With this invitation, he introduced me to the majordomo, who

No sooner was I in possession of so honourable an office, than master Diego, following the practice of cooks

in great houses, who pamper up their pretty dears in private with all sorts of good things, selected me to

supply a lady in the neighbourhood with a regular table of butcher's meat, poultry, and game. This good

friend of his was a widow on the right side of thirty, very pretty, very lively, and to all appearance contenting

herself with cupboard love for her cook. His generous passion was not confined to furnishing her with bread,

meat, and garnish; she drank her wine too, and the archbishop was her winemerchant.

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 322

The improvement of my parts kept pace with that of my carnal condition in his grace's palace: where I gave a

specimen of rising genius, still ringing on the trump of fame at Seville. The pages and some others of the

household had a mind to get up a play on my lord archbishop's birthday. They chose a popular Spanish

tragedy; and wanting a boy about my age to personate the young King of Leon, cast me for the part. The

majordomo, a great spouter, undertook to train me for the stage; and after a few lessons, pronounced that I

should not be the worst actor of the company. His grace not wishing to starve so handsome a compliment to

himself, no expense was spared in getting it up magnificently. The largest hall in the palace was fitted up as a

theatre, with appropriate decorations. At the side scene there was a bed of turf, on which I was to be

discovered asleep, when the Moors were to rush in and take me prisoner. When we had got so forward with

our rehearsals as to be sure of being ready by the time fixed, the archbishop sent out cards of invitation to all

At length the great, the important day arrived; and each performer was big with the contrivance and

adjustment of his dress. Mine was brought by a tailor, accompanied by our major domo, who, after taking

the trouble of drilling me at rehearsal, wished to see justice done to my outward appearance. The tailor put

me on a rich robe of blue velvet, with hanging sleeves, gold lace, fringe, and buttons: the majordomo

himself crowned me with a pasteboard crown, studded with false diamonds and real pearls. Moreover, they

gave me a sash of pink silk worked in silver; so that every new ornament was like a quillfeather in the wing

of a bird. At last, about dusk, the play began. The curtain drew up for my soliloquy; the purport of which was

to express, in a roundabout, poetical way, that not being able to defend myself from the influence of sleep, I

was going to lie down and take it as it came. To suit the action to the word, I sidled off to the corner between

the flat and the wings, and squatted down on my bed of turf, but instead of going to sleep, according to

promise, I was hammering upon the means of getting into the street, and running away with my coronation

finery. A little private staircase, leading under the theatre into the lower saloon, seemed to furnish the

probability of success. I slid away slily, while the audience were considering some necessary question of the

play, and ran down the staircase, through the saloon, to the door, calling out, "Make way! make way! I must

change my dress, and run up again in a moment!" They all made a lane, for fear of hindering me; so that in

less than two minutes I got clear out of the palace, under cover of the darkness, and scampered to the house of

He stared like a stuck pig at my equipment l But when I let him into the why and the wherefore, he laughed

ready to split his sides. Then, shaking hands in the sincerity of his heart, because he flattered himself with the

hope of a pension on the King of Leon's civil list, he wished me joy of so successful a first appearance, and

joined issue with the majordomo in the prognostic, that with encouragement and practice I should turn out a

firstrate actor, and make no little noise in the world. After we had diverted ourselves for some time at the

expense of my manager and audience, I said to the bully What shall we do with this magnificent dress?

Do not make yourself uneasy about that, answered he. I know an honest broker, without an atom of curiosity

in his composition, who will buy or sell anything with any person, provided that he gets the turn of the

market upon the transaction. I will fetch him to you tomorrow morning. The knowing fellow was as good as

his word; for he went out early the next day, leaving me in bed, and returned two hours afterwards with the

broker, carrying a yellow bundle under his arm. My friend, said he, give me leave to introduce Signor

Ybagnez of Segovia, who, in spite of the bad example set him by the trade in general, trusts to fair dealing

and small profits for a moderate pittance and an unblemished character. He will tell you to a fraction what the

dress you want to part with is really worth, and you may take his calculation as the balance of justice,

between, man and man. Oh yes I to a nicety, said the broker. Else wherefore live I in a Christian land, but to

appraise for my neighbour as for myself? To take a mean advantage never was, thank heaven! and at these

years never shall be, imputed to Ybagnez of Segovia. Let us look a little at those articles! You are the seller; I

am the buyer! We have only to agree upon an equitable price. Here they are, said the bully, pulling them out:

now own the truth, was there ever anything more magnificent? You do not often see such velvet: and then the

trimming! You cannot say too much of it, answered the salesman, examining the suit with the prying eye of a

dealer, it is of the very first quality. And what think you of the pearls upon this crown? resumed my friend. A

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 323

little rounder, observed Ybagnez, and there would be no setting a price upon them! however, take them as

they are, it is a very fine set, and I do not want to find fault about trifles. Now your common run of

appraisers, under my circumstances, would affect to disparage the goods for the sake of getting them cheaper;

one of those fellows would have the conscience to offer twenty pistoles; but there is nothing like bargaining

with an upright, downright man! I will give forty at a word; take them or leave them!

Had Ybagnez ventured up to a hundred, he would not have burned his fingers; for the pearls alone would

have fetched two hundred anywhere. The bully, who went snacks, then said Now only look! what a mercy

it is, to fall into the hands of a man not of this world. Signor Ybagnez estimates money as dross, in

comparison of his principles and his soul. He may die tonight, and yet not be taken unprepared! That is too

much! You make me blush, said the salesman of principle and soul; but so far is true, that my price is always

fixed. Well, now, is it a bargain? The money down upon the nail too! Stop a moment! answered the bully; my

little friend must first try on the clothes you have brought for him by my order: I am very much mistaken if

they will not just fit him. The salesman then, untying his bundle, shewed me a secondhand suit of dark cloth

with silver buttons. I got up, and got into it; too big for me every way! but these gentlemen could have sworn

it had been made to my measure. Ybagnez put it at ten pistoles; and as he was an upright, downright man, of

fixed principle and soul, estimating money as dross in comparison of integrity, his first price was of course

his last. He therefore took out his purse, and counted down thirty pistoles upon a table; after which he packed

When he was gone, the bully said I am very well satisfied with that broker. And so he well might be; for I

am certain he must have received at least a hundred pistoles as hushmoney. But there was no reason why the

broker's benevolence should pay the debts of my gratitude: so he took half the money on the table, without

saying with your leave or by your leave, and suffered me to pocket the remainder, with the following advice:

My dear Scipio, with that balance of fifteen pistoles, I would have you get out of this town as fast as you can;

for you may suppose that my lord archbishop will ferret you out if you are aboveground. It would grieve me

to the heart if, after having risen so superior to the prejudice of honesty, you had the weakness to fall foul of

what alone keeps it afloat, the house of correction. I answered that it was my fixed purpose to make myself

scarce at Seville, and accordingly, after buying a hat and some shirts, I travelled through vineyards and olive

groves to the ancient city of Carmona; and in three days afterwards arrived at Cordova.

I put up at an inn close by the marketplace, giving myself out for the heir of a good family at Toledo,

travelling for his pleasure. My appearance did not belie the story, and a few pistoles, which I contrived

carelessly to chink within the landlord's hearing, pinned his faith upon my veracity. Probably my unfledged

youth might lead him to take me for some graceless little truant who had robbed his parents and run away.

But that was no concern of his: he took the thing just as I gave it him, for fear lest his curiosity should clash

with my continuance at his house. For six reals a day one could live like a gentleman at this inn, where there

was generally a considerable concourse of company. About a dozen people sat down at supper. It was

whimsical enough; but the whole party plied their knives and forks without speaking a word, except one man,

who talked incessantly, right or wrong, and made up for the silence of the rest by his eternal babble. He

affected to be a wit, to tell a good story, and took great pains to make the good folks merry by his puns; and

accordingly they did laugh most inextinguishably; but it was at him, not with him.

For my part, I paid so little attention to the talk of this rattle, that I should have got up from table without

knowing what it was all about, if he had not brought it home to my business and my bosom. Gentlemen, cried

he, just as supper was over, I have kept my best story for the last; a very droll thing happened within these

few days at the archbishop of Seville's palace. I had it from a young fellow of my acquaintance, who assures

me that he was present at the time. These words made my heart jump up into my throat, for I had no doubt of

this being my exploit and so it turned out This pleasant gentle man related the facts as they actually

happened, and even carried the adventure to its conclusion, of which I was as yet ignorant: but now you shall

CH. X. The honeymoon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story. 324

No sooner had I absconded, than the Moors, who were, according to the progress of the fable and the rising of

the interest, to lay violent hands on me, appeared upon the stage, for the fell purpose of surprising me on my

bed of turf, where the author had given them reason to expect me fast asleep; but when they thought they

were just going to capot the King of Leon, they found, to their surprise, that both the king and the knave

made a trick against them. Here was a hole in the ballad! The actors all lost their cue; some of them called me

by name, others ran to look for me; here is a fellow bawling as though his bellows would burst, there stands

another, muttering to himself about the devil, just as if that reptile could stand upright in such a presence! The

archbishop, perceiving trouble and confusion to lord it behind the scenes, asked what was the matter. At the

sound of the prelate's voice, a page, who was the fiddle of the piece, came to the front and spoke thus: My

lord archbishop, ladies, and gentlemen! We are extremely sorry to inform you, as players, but extremely glad,

as men and Christians, that the King of Leon is at present in no danger whatever of being taken prisoner by

the Moors: he has adopted effectual measures for the security of his royal person; and to the royal person, as

liberty avails little without property, he has irrevocably attached the crown, insignia, and robes. And a happy

deliverance for himself and Christendom! exclaimed the archbishop. He has done perfectly right to escape

from the enemies of our religion, and to burst from the bonds in which their malice would have laid him. By

this time, probably, he has reached the confines of his kingdom, or may have entered the capital. May no

unlucky accident have retarded him on his journey! And that the sin of none such may lie heavy on my

conscience, I beg leave very positively to make my pleasure known, that he may proceed unmolested by any

interruption from this quarter; I should be highly mortified indeed, if his majesty's pious endeavours were to

be frustrated by the slightest indignity from the ministers of that religion in whose cause he labours and

suffers. The prelate, having thus declared his acquiescence in the motives of my flight, ordered my part to be

As long as I had money in my purse, my landlord was cap in hand; but the moment he began to suspect that

the funds were low, he became high and mighty, picked a German quarrel with me, and one morning, before

breakfast, begged it as a favour of me to march out of his house. I followed his counsel as proudly as you

please, and betook me to a church belonging to the fathers of St Dominic, where, while mass was performing,

an old beggar accosted me on the usual topic of alms. I dropped some small change into his hat, which was

truly the orphan's mite, saying at the same time: My friend, remember in your prayers to mention a situation

for me; if your petition is heard with favour, it shall be all the better for you; hearty thanks, and a handsome

At these words, the beggar surveyed me up and down from head to foot, and answered in a grave tone: What

place would you wish to have? I should like, replied I, to be footman in some family where I should do well.

He inquired whether the matter pressed. With all possible importunity, said I, for unless I have the good luck

to get settled very soon, the alternative will be horrible; death by the gripe of absolute famine, or a livelihood

in the ranks of your fraternity. If the latter were, after all, to be your lot, resumed he, it certainly would be

rather hard upon you, who have not been brought up to our habits of life; but, with a little use and practice,

you would prefer our condition to service, which, partiality apart, is far less respectable than the beggar's

vocation. Nevertheless, since you like a menial occupation better than leading a free and independent life like

me, you shall have a berth without more ado. Mean as my appearance, is, you must not measure my power by

I took care to keep the appointment. Though at the spot before the time, I had not long to wait before the

beggar joined me, and told me to follow him. I did so. He led me to a cellar not far from the church where he

resided. We went in together; and sitting down on a long bench, at least a hundred years the worse for wear,

the conversation took this turn on his part: A good action, as the proverb says, always meets with its reward:

you gave me alms yesterday, and that has determined me to get you a place, which shall be soon done, with a

blessing on my endeavours. I know an old Dominican, by name Father Alexis, a holy monk, a ghostly

confessor. I have the honour to do all his little odd jobs, performing my task with so much discretion and

good faith, that he always lends his interest to me and my friends. I have spoken to him about you, and in

such terms as to prepossess him in your favour. You may be introduced to his reverence whenever you

There is not a moment to be lost, said I to the old beggar; let us go to the good monk immediately. The

mendicant agreed, and led me by the arm to Father Alexis, whom we found in his room, hard at work, writing

spiritual letters. He broke off to talk with me. As it was the wish of the mendicant, he would do all in his

power to serve me. Having learnt, pursued be, that Signor Balthasar Velasquez is in want of a footboy, I

wrote to him this morning on your behalf; and he just sent me for answer, that he would take you without

further inquiry on my recommendation. This very day you may call on him from me; he is one of my flock,

and my very good friend. Thereupon the monk preached to me for three quarters of an hour on my moral and

religious duties, and how to fulfil them in conscience and honour. He enlarged principally on the obligation

of serving Velasquez with diligence and devotion; and then assured me that he would take care and keep me

After having thanked the holy person for his goodness towards me, I left the convent with the beggar, who

told me that Signor Balthasar Velasquez was an old woollendraper, but with much simplicity and good

nature in his character. I doubt not, added he, but you will be perfectly comfortable in his house. I begged to

know his place of residence, and repaired thither immediately, after promising to make my gratitude

manifest, as soon as I had taken root in my new soil. I went into a large shop, where two fashionable young

apprentices were walking up and down, practising new grimaces against the entrance of the next customer. I

inquired whether their master was at home, saying that I wanted to speak with him from Father Alexis. At

that venerable name they shewed me into the countinghouse, where their principal was turning over the

ledger. I made a low bow, and coming up to him, Sir, said I, Father Alexis ordered me to call here and offer

myself as a servant to your honour. Ah! my smart lad, answered he, you are heartily welcome. It is enough

that the holy man sent you; and I shall take you in preference to three or four others who have been

A very short time in the family convinced me that the head of it was just such a man as he had been

described, In point of simplicity, be was everything that could be wished; so exquisite a subject for

imposition, that it seemed next to an impossibility not to exercise my craft upon such a handle. He had been a

widower four years, and had two children, a son fiveandtwenty, and a daughter in her eleventh year. The

girl, brought up by a severe duenna, under the spiritual conduct of Father Alexis, walked in the high road of

virtue; but her brother, Gaspard Velasquez, though no pains had been spared to make a good man of him,

picked out for himself all the vices of a young profligate. Sometimes he stayed away from home two or three

days together; and if, on his return, his father ventured to remonstrate in the least against his proceedings,

Gaspard shut his mouth at once, with a haughty toss of the head, and an impertinent answer.

Scipio, said the old man one day, my son is the plague of my life. He is over head and ears in all kinds of

debauchery: and yet there is no accounting for it, since his education was by no means neglected. I have

given him the very best masters; and my friend Father Alexis has done his utmost to train him up in the way

he should go; but there was no breaking him in; Master Gaspard ran restive, and bolted into downright

libertinism. You may perhaps tell me, that I spared the rod and spoiled the child. Quite otherwise! he was

punished whenever the occasion seemed to demand it; for, though goodtempered at bottom, I am not to be

played upon. I have even gone so far as to lock him up, but that only made hint more headstrong than before.

In short, he is one of those impracticable beings, on whom good example, good advice, and a good

horsewhip, are equally thrown away. If ever he makes any figure in the world, it must be by a miracle from

Though my heart was not grievously wrung by the sorrows of this unhappy father, sympathy was expected

from me, and I condoled with him accordingly. How much to be pitied you are, sir! said I. Virtues like yours

deserved to have been handed down in your progeny. The event is quite the reverse, my good lad, answered

he. Heaven heard my prayer, and gave me a son, but converted the blessing into an affliction. Among other

grounds of complaint against Gaspard, I may tell you in confidence, there is one which gives me a great deal

of uneasiness; a vast longing to rob his old father, which he too often finds the means of satisfying, in spite of

all my caution. Your predecessor played into his hands, and was turned away in consequence. As for you, I

flatter myself that my son will never be able to tamper with your honesty. You will take my side of the

question; for doubtless Father Alexis has given you your lesson on that head. You may rest assured of that,

said I; for a good long hour did his reverence lecture me on doing your will and pleasure without let or

hindrance; but I can assure you, there was no need of his saying anything about the matter. I feel within

myself a sort of call to serve you faithfully, and I promise to do it with a zeal beyond all the temptations of

He who only hears one side is in danger of deciding partially. Young Velasquez, a mixture of the fribble and

the braggart, concluding from the cut of my countenance that I was made up of mortal frailty like my dear

predecessor, drew me aside to a snug corner, and there talked to me after this fashion. Now mind what is said

to you, my dear fellow; you may think I do not know that you are set as a spy upon me by my father; but take

especial care how you proceed, for I can assure you most sincerely, that the office is not without very

considerable inconvenience to those who undertake it. If ever I find that you tell tales out of school, I will

give you such a basting as you never had in your life; but if you will make common cause with me, and a fool

of my father, you may buy golden returns of gratitude from your humble servant. Do you wish me to deal

with you upon the nail? You shall go snacks in at that we can squeeze out of the old fellow. You have only to

take your choice: fall at once into the ranks either of father or son; for neutrals will come worse off, where the

Sir, answered I, you make the shoe pinch very tight; it is self evident that there is nothing for me to do but to

enlist under your banners, though in my conscience it seems like a crying sin to betray Signor Velasquez.

That is no concern of yours, rejoined Gaspard; he is an old hunks, who wants to keep me under his thumb; a

curmudgeon who refuses me the rights of nature, in refusing to stand to the expenses and repairs of my

pleasures; for pleasures are the necessaries of life at fiveandtwenty. It is in this point of view that you must

form your opinion of my father. If that is the case, so be it, sir, said I; there is no standing against so just a

subject of complaint. I am quite at your service to play second fiddle in all your laudable enterprises; but let

us take especial care to conceal our good understanding, for fear your faithful, humble servant should be

kicked out of doors. It will not be amiss, in my poor opinion, for you to affect an extreme antipathy against

me: some good round of abuse would have a very pretty effect; you need not be nice; all the blackguard terms

in the dictionary will come at your call. Nay, a box on the ear now and then, or a kick on the breech, will

break no squares; on the contrary, the more you express your thorough dislike, the more Signor Balthasar will

pin his faith upon my sleeve. My cue will be, apparently to avoid speaking to you if possible. In waiting at

table, I shall perform my little attentions to you at arm's length; and whenever your honour may happen to be

called over the coals by the shopmen, you must not take it amiss if I abuse you worse than a pickpocket.

As plain as chalk from cheese! cried young Velasquez at this last hint; this is admirable, my friend; at your

early age, it is uncommon to meet with such a talent for intrigue; I consider it as a most happy omen for my

purpose. With such a performer to play up to me, I flatter myself the old codger will be pinched to the bone

and left penniless. You really carry your good opinion of me beyond what my merit will justify, said I; some

industry may fall to my share, but not such exalted genius. But I shall do my utmost; and if my honest

It was not long before Gaspard had proof positive that I was to a hair's breadth the very man he wanted; and

the following was precisely the first trick I played into his hand. Balthasar's strong box was in the good man's

chamber, by his bedside, a sort of oratory, with a prayerbook always lying upon it. Every time I looked

that way, my eyes glistened with hope and pleasure; my heart chuckled over the very idea of what might

happen: Fair, sweet, cruel box, will you for ever be coy to my addresses? May I never experience the

heartfelt delight of possessing all your charms for better, for worse? As I went into the room at pleasure, and

only Gaspard was warned off the premises, it happened one day that I watched his father. The old gentleman,

fancying himself unobserved of human eye, after having opened his treasury and closed it fast again, hid the

key behind the hangings. I took an accurate observation of the place, and communicated the discovery to my

young master, who said with an improving hug: Ah! my dear Scipio, what glorious news you bring! Our

fortune is made, my dear fellow. I will furnish you with wax; you shall take the impression of the key, and

then our business is done, There will be no difficulty in finding a benevolent locksmith in Cordova, where, to

Well! but why, said I to Gaspard, do you want a false key? We may find our account in the proper one. Yes,

answered he; but I am afraid lest my father, through mistrust or whim, should take a fancy to hiding it

elsewhere; and the safest way is, to have one of our own. I commended his precaution, and falling in with all

his principles, got ready for taking the impression of the key: this was effected one morning early, while my

old master was paying a visit to Father Alexis, with whom he for the most part held very long conferences. I

did not stop here; but availed myself of the key to open the strong box, wherein an ample range of large and

small bags threw me into the most delightful perplexity imaginable. I did not know which to choose, there

was such a family likeness among them; nevertheless, as the fear of being caught did not allow of any long

deliberation, I laid hands, haphazard, on the largest. Then, locking the box carefully, and putting the key back

again behind the hangings, I got away out of the chamber with my booty, and hid it under my bed, in a small

Having performed this exploit so successfully, I ran back as fast as my legs would carry me to young

Velasquez, who was waiting at a house where he had given me notice to meet him, and his delight was

extreme at the recital of what I had just done. He was so fully satisfied with me, as to lavish caresses without

number, and to offer me thrice, in the fulness of his heart, half the contents of the bag, which I did thrice

refuse. No, no, sir, said I, this first bag is yours and yours only; apply it to your own uses and occasions. I

shall return forth with to the strong box, where, as our lucky stars have contrived it, there is money enough

for both of us. Accordingly, three days afterwards I carried off a second bag, containing, like the first, five

hundred crowns, of which I would only handle the fourth part, let Gaspard be as pressing as he pleased to

As soon as this young man found himself so flush of money, and consequently in a condition to gratify his

hankering after women and play, he gave himself up entirely to the devices of his own imagination; nay, his

evil genius pursued him so far, as to make him fall desperately in love with one of those female harpies, who

devour without remorse or intermission, and swallow up the largest fortunes. His disbursements at her

instigation were frightful; and thus it became necessary for me to pay so many visits to the strong box, that

old Velasquez at length found out he had been robbed. Scipio, said he one morning, I must give you a piece

of information; some one robs me, my friend; my strong box has been opened; several bags have been taken

out, that is a certain fact. Whom ought I to accuse of this theft? or rather, who else but my son can have

committed it? Gaspard must have got by stealth into my chamber, or else you yourself must have played

booty with him; for I am tempted to believe you are in league with him, though to outward appearance you do

not set up your horses together. And yet I am unwilling to harbour that suspicion, because Father Alexis

undertook to answer for your honesty. I gave him to understand that, by the blessing of heaven on a good

natural disposition, my neighbours' goods had no temptation in my sight; and I so happily suited the action to

the lie, and the lie to the action, that my judge pronounced a verdict of acquittal on the evidence of grimace

Accordingly the old man dropped the subject; but for all that, there was a general misgiving in his breast, and

it would sometimes light upon me; taking precautions, therefore, against our further attacks, he had a new

lock put to his strong box and always carried the key in his pocket By these means, an embargo being laid on

our traffic with the bags, we looked excessively foolish, especially Gaspard, who, being unable any longer to

keep his nymph in her usual style, knew very well that he was likely to be tossed out of her window. He had,

however, invention enough to devise an expedient for keeping his head above water a few days longer, and

that was neither more nor less than to get into his clutches, in the form of a loan, my dividend on the joint

stock of the strong box. I refunded to the last farthing; and this restitution, it is to be hoped, may be set off as

The young man, having exhausted this scanty supply, and desperate of any other, fell into a deep melancholy,

and into ultimate derangement. He no longer looked on his father in any other light than as the bane of his

life. His frenzy broke out into the most dreadful projects; so that, without listening to the voice of

consanguinity or nature, the wretch conceived the impious design of poisoning him. He was not content with

making me privy to the atrocious design, but even proposed to render me the instrument of parricide. At the

very thought, my blood ran cold within me. Sir, said I, is it possible that you are so rejected of heaven as to

have formed this horrid plot? What! is it in your nature to murder the author of your existence? Shall Spain,

the favoured abode of the Christian faith, bear witness to the commission of a crime, at the first blush of

which transatlantic savages would recoil with horror? No, my dear master, added I, throwing myself on my

knees, no, you will not be guilty of an action which would raise the hand of all mankind against you, and be

I pressed many arguments beside on Gaspard, to dissuade him from so fearful an enterprise. How the deuce I

came by all the moral and religious topics, which I brought to act against the fortress of his despair, is more

than I can account for; but it is certain that I preached like a doctor of Salamanca, though a mere stripling,

born of a gipsy fortuneteller. And yet it was to no purpose that I suggested the duty of communing with his

own better resolutions, and stoutly wrestling with the fiend, who was lying in wait for his immortal soul; my

pious eloquence was dissipated into air. His head hung sullenly on his bosom, and his tongue uttered no

sound, in answer to all my mollifying exhortations, so that there was every reason to conclude he would not

Hereupon, taking my own measures, I requested a private interview with my old master; and being closeted

with him, Sir, said I, allow me to throw myself at your feet, and to implore your pity. In pathetic accord with

my moving accents, I prostrated myself before him, with my face all bathed in tears. The merchant, surprised

at what he saw and heard, asked the cause of my distress. Remorse of conscience and repentance, answered I;

but neither repentance nor remorse can ever wash out my guilt. I have been weak enough to give ear to your

son, and to be his accomplice in robbing you. To this confession I added a sincere acknowledgment of all that

had happened, with the particulars of my late conversation with Gaspard, whose design I laid open without

Bad as was the opinion which old Velasquez entertained of his son, he could scarcely believe his ears.

Nevertheless, finding no good reason to distrust the truth of my account, Scipio, said he, raising me from the

ground, where I had till now been prostrate at his feet, I forgive you in consideration of the important notice

you have communicated. Gaspard! pursued he, raising his voice up to the loudness of anguish, does Gaspard

aim a blow at my life! Ah l ungrateful son, unnatural monster! better thou hadst never been born, or stifled at

thy birth, than to have been reared for the destruction of thy father! What plea, what object, what palliation of

the atrocious deed? I furnished thee annually with a reasonable allowance for thy pleasures, and what wouldst

thou have more? Must I have drained my fortune to the dregs to support thee in thy extravagance? Having

vented his feelings in this bitter apostrophe, he enjoined secrecy on me, and told me to leave him alone, while

I was very anxious to know what resolution this unhappy father would take, when on that very day he sent for

Gaspard, and addressed hint thus without betraying the inward emotions of his heart: My so; I have received

a letter from Merida, purporting that if you are disposed to marry, you may make a match with a very fine girl

of fifteen, with a handsome fortune in her pocket. If you have not forsworn that happy and holy estate, we

will set out tomorrow morning by daybreak for Merida: you will see the lady in question, and if she hits

your fancy, the business may soon be settled, Gaspard, pricking up his ears at a handsome fortune, and

already fingering the cash by anticipation, answered unhesitatingly that he was ready to undertake the

journey; and accordingly they departed the following day at sunrise, without attendants, mounted on good

Having reached the mountains of Fesira, in a delightful spot for the operations of banditti, but terrorstirring

to the timid souls of travellers, Balthasar dismounted, and desired his son to do likewise. The young man

obeyed, but expressed his surprise at such a requisition, in so lonely a place. I will tell you the reason

presently, answered the old man, darting at him a look of mingled grief and anger: We are not going to

Merida; and the alleged courtship was only an invention of mine, for the purpose of drawing you hither. I am

not ignorant, ungrateful and unnatural son, I am not uninformed of your meditated crime. I am aware that a

poison, prepared by your hands, was to have been administered to me; but, mad as you are, could it enter into

your contemplation that my life could have been invaded with impunity by such means? How fatally

mistaken! Your crime would soon have been detected, and you would have perished under the hands of the

executioner. There is a safer way of glutting your fell malice, without exposing yourself to an ignominious

death; we are here without witnesses, and in a place where daily murders are perpetrated; since you are so

thirsty after my blood, plunge your dagger into my bosom: the assassination will naturally be laid at the door

of some banditti. After these words, Balthasar, laying his breast bare, and pointing to his heart, ended with

this challenge: Here, Gaspard, strike deep enough, strike home; make me pay that forfeit for having

engendered such a disgrace to human nature, and no more than what is due to so monstrous a production,

Young Velasquez, struck by this reproach as by a thunderbolt, far from pleading in his own justification, fell

instantly lifeless at his father's feet. The good old man, hailing the germ of repentance in this unfeigned

testimony of shame, could not help yielding to paternal weakness; he made all possible haste to give his

assistance; but Gaspard had no sooner recovered the use of his senses, than unable to stand in the presence of

a father so justly offended, he made an effort to raise himself from the ground, then sprang upon his mule,

and galloped out of sight without saying one word. Balthasar suffered him to take his own course, and

returned to Cordova, little doubting but conscience would play its part in revenging his wrongs. Six months

afterwards it appeared that the culprit had thrown himself into the Carthusian convent at Seville, there to pass

BAD example sometimes produces the converse of itself. The behaviour 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 eyeing 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 newborn integrity with meats too strong for its stomach: and

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 favour 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

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 honour 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 seventytwo, 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

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 wage; 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 liquorish constitution.

No matter for that! She was not to be awed from the career of her humour 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 honouring 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 honour 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 splendour 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 newmarried couple disappeared, and were shewn 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 shew 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

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 ante room with a bookcase bedstead; my master's in an elegant bedchamber 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 bed

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 wellmatched 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 sempstress 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 monied 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

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

Thus was I, continued this son of a gipsy, 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 underservants; 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

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 tenniscourt, 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 waitingmaid 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

One night, a night which should be expunged from the almanac, a night of darkness and despair, contrasted

with the brightness of all our former nights, I was surprised on approaching the garden, to find the little gate

open. This unusual circumstance alarmed me; for it seemed to augur something inauspicious to my

happiness: I turned pale and trembled, as if with a foreknowledge of what was going to happen. Advancing in

the dark towards a bower, where our private meetings had usually taken place, I heard a man's voice. I

stopped on the instant to listen, when the following words struck like the sound of death upon my ear: Do not

keep me languishing in suspense, my dear Beatrice; make my happiness complete, and consider that your

own fortunes are closely connected with mine. Instead of having patience to hear further, it seemed as if more

had been said than blood could expiate; that devil, jealousy, took possession of my soul; I drew my sword,

and breathing only vengeance, rushed into the bower. Ah! base seducer, cried I, whoever you are, you shall

tear this heart from out my breast, rather than touch my honour on its tenderest point. With these words on

my lips, I attacked the gentleman who was talking with Beatrice. He stood upon his guard without more ado,

like a man much better acquainted with the science of arms than myself, who had only received a few lessons

from a fencingmaster at Cordova. And yet, strong as his sword arm was, I made a thrust which he could

not parry, or what is more likely, his foot slipped: I saw him fall; and fancying that I had wounded him

mortally, ran away as hard as my legs could carry me, without deigning to answer Beatrice, who would have

Yes, indeed! said Scipio's wife, resolved to have her share in the development of the story; I called out for the

purpose of undeceiving him. The gentleman conversing with me in the arbour was Don Ferdinand de Leyva.

This nobleman, who was in love with my mistress Julia, had laid a plan for running away with her, from

despair of being able to obtain her hand by any other means; and I had myself made this assignation with him

in the garden, to concert measures for the elopement, and with his fortune he assured me that my own was

closely linked; but it was in vain that I screamed after my husband; he darted from me as if my very touch

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 bestregulated spirits, will be at no loss to conceive the

disorder it must have produced in my weak brain. I passed in a moment from one extreme to an other:

emotions of hatred succeeded instantaneously to all my former sentiments of affection for my wife. I took an

oath never to see her more, and to banish her for ever from my memory. Besides, the supposed death of a

man lay upon my conscience; and under that idea, I was afraid of falling into the hands of justice; so that

every torment which could be accumulated on the head of guilt and misery by the fury of despair and the

demon of remorse, was the remediless companion of my wretched flight In this dreadful situation, thinking

only of my escape, I returned home no more, but immediately quitted Toledo, with no other provision for my

journey but the clothes on my back. It is true, I had about sixty pistoles in my pocket; a tolerable supply for a

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 were cut short. The church echoed on a sudden with three or four smacks of a whip, which made

me conclude that some carrier was on the road. I immediately got up to go and see whether I was right or

wrong. At the door I found a man, mounted on a mule, leading two others by the halter. Stop, my friend, said

I, whither are those two mules going? To Madrid, answered he. I came hither with two good Dominicans, and

Such an opportunity of going to Madrid gave me an itching desire for the expedition: I made my bargain with

the muleteer, jumped upon one of his mules, and away we scampered towards Ilescas, where we were to put

up for the night. Scarcely were we out of Maqueda before the muleteer, a man from fiveandthirty to forty,

began chanting the church service with a most collegiate twang. This trial of his lungs began with matins, in

the drowsy tone of a canon between asleep and awake; then he roared out the Belief; alternately in contralto,

tenor, and bass, in all the harmonious confusion of high mass; and not content with that, he rang the bell for

vespers, without sparing me a single petition or so much as a bar of the magnificat. Though the scoundrel

almost cracked the drum of my ear, I could not help laughing heartily; and even egged him on to make the

welkin reverberate with his hallelujahs, when the anthem was suspended a few rests, for the necessary

purpose of supplying wind to the organ. Courage, my friend! said I; go on and prosper. If heaven has given

you a good capacious throat, you are neither a niggard nor a perverter of its precious boon. Oh! certainly not

for the matter of that, cried he; happily for my immortal soul, I am not like carriers in general, who sing

nothing but profane songs about love or drinking: I do not even defile my lips with ballads on our wars

against the Moors: such subjects are at least light and unedifying, if not licentious and impure. You have,

replied I, an evangelical purity of heart which belongs only to the elect among muleteers. With this excessive

squeamishness of yours about the choice of your music, have you also taken a vow of continence, wherever

there is a young bar maid to be picked up at an inn? Assuredly, rejoined he, chastity is also a virtue by

which it is my pride to ward off the temptations of the road, where my only business is to look after my

mules. I was in no small degree astonished at such pious sentiments from this prodigy of psalmsinging

muledrivers; so that looking upon him as a man above the vanities and corruptions of this nether world, I

We got to Ilescas late in the day. On entering the innyard, I left the care of the mules to my companion, and

went into the kitchen, where I ordered the landlord to get us a good supper, which he promised to perform so

much to my satisfaction, as to make me remember all the days of my life what usage travellers meet with at

his house As, added he, now only ask your carrier what sort of a man I am. By all the powers of seasoning! I

would defy the best cook in Madrid or Toledo to make an olio at all to be compared to mine. I shall treat you

this evening with some stewed rabbit after a receipt of my own; you will then see whether it is any boast to

say that I know how to send up a supper. Thereupon, shewing me a stewpan with a young rabbit, as he said,

cut up into pieces: There, continued he, is what I mean to favour you with. When I shall have thrown in a

little pepper, some salt, wine, a handful of sweet herbs, and a few other ingredients which I keep for my own

sauces, you may depend on sitting down to such a dish as would not disgrace the table of a chancellor or an

The landlord, having thus done justice to his own merits, began to work upon the materials he had prepared.

While he was labouring in his vocation, I went into a room, where lying down on a sort of couch, I fell fast

asleep through fatigue, having taken no rest the night before, in the space of about two hours, the muleteer

came and awakened me, with the information that supper was ready, and a pressing request to take my place

at table. The cloth was laid for two, and we sat down to the hashed rabbit. I played my knife and fork most

manfully, finding the flavour delicious, whether from the force of hunger in communicating a candid mode of

interpretation to my palate, 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 Cuen�a, 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 battlearray

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 Ilescas, 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 readyfurnished

lodging near the Sungate. 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

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 de serves 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 honours 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

What Gellius or Stobaeus hash'd 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 commonsense would have consigned to the brief alternative of a

Disputes of Me or Te, or Aut at 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 hand

writing 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 honour 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 labour 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

I have already mentioned that Doctor de Ipigna was a native of Madrid. He had a relation there, by name

Catalina, waitingmaid to the lady who officiated as nurse to the heirapparent. 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 favour: 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,

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 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 ease, 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 Gu�vra, 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 hangerson, and

lost no opportunity of ascertaining how far I was for her purpose. She confided some commissions to my ear;

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

Fair and softly, my pretty friend, said I: we must look before we leap into that bottomless gulf: the first point

to be settled is to ascertain the death of a young woman, who obtained the refusal before you, and made me

supremely happy, for no other purpose but to anticipate the purgatory of an intermediate state in the present.

All a mere sham, a put off! answered Catalina: you swear you are married only by way of throwing a genteel

veil over your abhorrence of my person and manners. In vain did I call all the powers to witness, that what I

said was solemnly true: my sincere avowal was considered as a mere copy of my countenance; the lady was

grievously offended, and changed her whole behaviour in regard to me. There was no downright quarrel; but

our tender intercourse became visibly more rigid and unaccommodating, so that nothing further took place

Just at the nick of time, I heard that Signor Gil Blas de Santillane, secretary to the prime minister of the

Spanish monarchy, wanted a servant; and the situation was the more flattering, as it bore the bell among all

the vacancies of the court register office. Signor de Santillane, they told me, was one of the first men, high in

favour with the Duke of Lerma, and consequently in the direct road to fortune: his heart, too, was cast in the

mould of generosity: by doing his business, you most assuredly did your own. The opportunity was too good

to be neglected I went and offered myself to Signor Gil Blas, to whom I felt my heart grow from the first; for

my sentiments were fixed by the turn of his physiognomy. There could be no question about leaving the royal

and most catholic nurse for him; and it is to be hoped, I shall never have any other master.

Here ended Scipio's story. But he continued speaking, and addressed himself to me. Signor de Santillane, do

me the favour to assure those ladies that you have always known me for a faithful and zealous servant. Your

testimony will stand me in good stead, and vouch for a sincere reformation in the son of Coselina.

Yes, ladies, said I, it is even so. Though Scipio in his childhood was a very scapegrace, he has been born

anew, and is now the exact model of a trusty domestic. Far from having any complaints to make against him,

my debt is infinite. On the fatal night when I was earned off to the tower of Segovia, he saved my effects

from pillage, and refunded what he might have taken to himself with impunity: not contented with rescuing

my worldly pelf, he came out of pure friendship and shut himself up with me in my prison, preferring the

melancholy sympathies of adverse fortune to all the charms of lusty, buoyant liberty.

I HAVE observed already that Antonia and Beatrice understood one another perfectly well; the latter falling

meekly and modestly into the trammels of an humble attendant on her lady, and the former taking very kindly

to the rank of a mistress and superior. Scipio and myself were husbands too rich in nature's gifts and in the

affections of our spouses, not very soon to have the satisfaction of becoming fathers: our lasses were as

women wish to be who love their lords, almost at the same moment. Beatrice's time was up first: she was

safely delivered of a daughter; and in a few days afterwards Antonia completed the general joy, by presenting

me with a son. I sent my secretary to Valencia with the welcome tidings: the governor came to Lirias with

Seraphina and the Marchioness de Pliego, to be present at the baptismal ceremony; for he made it his pleasure

to add this testimony of affection to all his former kindnesses. As that nobleman stood godfather, and the

Marchioness godmother to my son, he was named Alphonse; and the governor's lady, wishing to draw the

bonds of sponsorship still closer in this friendly party, stood for Scipio's daughter, to whom we gave the name

The rejoicings at the birth of my son were not confined to the mansionhouse; the villagers of Lirias

celebrated the event by festivities, which were meant as a grateful token, to prove how much the little

neighbourhood partook in all the satisfactions of their landlord. But, alas! our carousals were of short

continuance; or, to speak more suitably to the subject, they were turned into weeping, wailing, and

lamentation, by a catastrophe which more than twenty years have not been sufficient to blot from my

memory, nor will future time, however distant, make me think of it but with the bitterest retrospect. My son

died; and his mother, though perfectly recovered from her confinement, very soon followed him: a violent

fever carried off my dear wife, after we had been married fourteen months. Let the reader conceive, if he is

equal to the task, the grief with which I was overwhelmed: I fell into a stupid insensibility; and felt my loss so

severely, as to seem not to feel it at all. I remained in this condition for five or six days, in an obstinate

determination to take no nourishment; and I verily believe that, had it not been for Scipio, I should either

have starved myself, or my heart would have burst; but my secretary, well knowing how to accommodate

himself to the turnings and windings of the human heart, contrived to cheat my sorrows by fitting in with

their tone and tenor: he was artful enough to reconcile me to the duty of taking food, by serving up soups and

lighter fare with so disconsolate an arrangement of features that it looked as if he urged me to the revolting

employment, not so much to preserve my life, as to perpetuate and render immortal my affliction.

This affectionate servant wrote to Don Alphonso, to let him know of the misfortune which had happened to

me, and my lamentable condition in consequence. That tenderhearted 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

The governor had a long conversation with Scipio respecting the measures to be taken for overcoming my

despair. They judged it best to remove me for some time from Lirias, where every object incessantly brought

back to my mind the image of Antonia. On this account the son of Don Caesar proposed carrying me back

with him to Valencia; and my secretary seconded the plan with so many unanswerable arguments, that I made

no further opposition. I left Scipio and his wife on my estate, where my longer stay could have produced no

other effect but that of aggravating and enhancing all my sorrows, and took my own departure with the

governor. On my arrival at Valencia, Don Caesar and his daughterinlaw 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

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

For a man at your time of life, replied that cunning son of a diviner, you are uncommonly mortified to all the

uses of this world. Under your circumstances my curiosity would be all alive; I should go to Madrid and

show my face to the young monarch, just to see whether he would recollect it, merely for the amusement of

the thing. I understand you, said I; you would have me return to court and try my fortune again, or rather you

would plunge me back into the gulf of avarice and ambition. Why should such baleful passions any more take

possession of your breast? rejoined Scipio. Do not so much play the calumniator on your own virtue. I will

answer for your firmness to yourself. The sound moral reflections which your disgrace has occasioned you to

make on the vanities of a court life, are a sufficient security against all the dangers to be feared from that

quarter. Embark boldly once again upon an ocean where are acquainted with every shoal and rock in the

dangerous navigation. Hold your tongue, you flatterer, said I, with a smile of no very positive

discouragement; are you weary of seeing me lead a retired and tranquil life? I thought my repose had been

Just at this period of our conversation, Don Caesar and his son came in. They confirmed the news of the

king's death, as well as the Duke of Lerma's misfortune. It appeared, moreover, that this minister, having

requested permission to retire to Rome, had not been able to obtain it, but was ordered to confine himself to

his marquisate at Denia. On this, as if they had been in 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 honour to pay the Prince of Spain's debts. I consider the affair

just in the same light as you do, said Don Caesar; and Santillane's visit to court will doubtless prove the

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 shew 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

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 Caesar 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 honours. Led out

of that course solely by that tempter, curiosity, without a dream of hope, or any practical contrivance for

tuning 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.

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 readyfurnished lodging, where I had lived formerly, kept

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 favourable 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

CH. 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. 341

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

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 honour 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 lefthanded 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

Just as the prince was uttering these words, the Count of Olivarez came into the closet. The nerves of

favourites are shaken by every breath, their irritability excited by every trifle: he was as much astonished as

any favourite 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 tenterhooks 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

I immediately went out of the closet and made the best of my way to the son of Coselina, 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 almanacmaker another time? You must acknowledge that

we were not in the wrong! the lords of Leyva and myself have our eyeteeth 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 favours 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

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 lurkingplace 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 bladebones, though inelegant, were a pair; his

head, which was large enough to he 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 olivecoloured, his

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

favourable 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 humour as

if he were the person to be obliged, and this was a sufficient setoff 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

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 a 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

I was stung to the quick by so hostile a treatment, and in a humour 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

favourable intention towards me, and is not that enough to draw down upon me the thorough hatred of the

monarch's favourite? 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 honours 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

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

ON my way home to my lodgings I met Joseph Navarro, whom the render 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 its remembrance. For my part, I knew not how to hug Joseph close enough in my

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 favourite

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 clue 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

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 favour. My friend Navarro not

meaning to serve me by halves, introduced me two days afterwards to Don Balthasar, 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

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 favourable reception, and my confidence was

CH. III. The project of retirement is prevented, and Joseph Navarro brought upon the stage again, by an act of signal service. 344

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

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 today 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.

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 honour of shewing 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

What the devil is the meaning of all this? said I within myself. What construction ought I to put upon all these

honours? 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 betweea 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 he a subject of surprise; but rely on it that splendour in the eye of the world, and the solid

advantages of accumulating wealth, are equally with in your grasp, if you do but attach yourself as faithfully

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 lean 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 favourite 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 colours, all the anecdotes I had been able to

pick up respecting his corrupt practices and underhand dealing in the sale of promotions, military,

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 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 underhung jaw in a paroxysm of humourstricken

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 Balthazar for his good offices, and to acquaint my friend Joseph with the

favourable dispositions of the prime minister, and my brilliant prospects in con sequence.

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 some thing 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

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

thoroughpaced sagacity. Add to all this, that he is so obstinately wedded to his own opinions, as

CH. V. The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the service of the Count d'Olivarez. 346

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 � 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

firstrate 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

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 favour 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

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 favour. He assured me with infinite goodbreeding 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

CH. V. The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the service of the Count d'Olivarez. 347

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 suite 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 doorkeeper. 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 favour. 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 favour 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 me with 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

in dependence. 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 exministry were so cruelly belaboured, 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. Oh man! man! what a compound of candour breathing satire and

Towards the conclusion, having finished my frightful portraiture of overhanging evils, I endeavoured 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

CH. V. The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the service of the Count d'Olivarez. 348

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,

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 for ever! 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

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

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 an other 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 countryhouse, and taken a peep at the town of Oviedo, the recollection of which I cannot admit into

my mind, without turning over threefourths of the inhabitants, and onehalf 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

honoured parents' annuity, and another hundred for himself; meaning that he should perform his long journey

CH. 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. 349

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 armoury 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

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 illgotten 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 spunges 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 favourites 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

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 favours; 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

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

CH. 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. 350

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 re cover its pristine splendour

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.

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 selflove was

grazed now and then, for the people have a way of bolting out home truths, without any nice calculation

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 anything worth repeating was said, his excellency was sure to hear of it. It can scarcely be

necessary to hint, that I never carried home anything 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 an 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, play; and works of

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 halfpay receptacle for

invalids on the musterroll 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

takethehindermost sort of aspect, which good keep communicates to the human face. The reverses of this

chequered 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.

CH. VII. Gil Blas meets with his friend Fabricio once more; the accident, place, and circumstances described; with the particulars of their conversation together. 351

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 nonintercourse 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 turnpikeroad of good sense. I wish you joy,

my dear Nunez, replied I; 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 wellweighed

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 tomorrow. 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 claptraps 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 vapours 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 diarrhoea 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 she 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

CH. VIII. Gil Blas gets forward progressively in his master's affections. Scipio's return to Madrid, and account of his journey. 352

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

By conduct like this, which almost always answers, I became by degrees my master's favourite; 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

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

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 favourite 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

It is true, continued he, that on my accession to the ministry, it was my first care to remove all hangerson

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; in that I may say at the present moment, no statesman

of the time holds me in check by the ascendancy 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

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 inference all the orders it might be his

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

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

CH. VIII. Gil Blas gets forward progressively in his master's affections. Scipio's return to Madrid, and account of his journey. 353

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

VERY shortly after the son of Coselina'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

My daughter, Donna Maria, pursued he, is marriageable, and of course beset with suitors. The Count de

Ni�bl�s, 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

soninlaw. Nevertheless, without entering into private motives for treating him, as well as the Count de

Ni�bl�s, with a refusal, my present views are fixed upon Don Ramires Nunez de Guzman, Marquis of Toni,

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 humour at it. Let him take it as he list, resumed the minister; I give myself very

little concern about that. His branch is no favourite 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 humours 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

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 honour 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 shewing this answer everywhere; and affecting to consider it as a royal

mandate, hastened his daughter's marriage with the Marquis de Toral; a deathblow to the hopes of the

CH. IX.. How my lord duke married his only daughter, and to whom: with the bitter consequences of that marriage. 354

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 illwishers 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 stillborn, and the mother died a few

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

sympathiser, 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 fellowfeeling! 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.

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 Saint 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 most 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 humour. 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

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

CH. 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. 355

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 openhanded; 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 flippanttongued 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

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 honour 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

favour ably 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

At length, the day of performance arrived. I could not go to the play, being prevented by official business.

The only thing to be done was to send Scipio, that he might bring me back word how it went off; for I was

sincerely interested in the event. After waiting impatiently for his return, in he came with a long face which

boded no good. Well, said I, how was "The Count of Saldagna" welcomed by the critics? Very roughly,

answered he; never was there a play more brutally handled; I left the house in high anger at the injustice and

insolence of the pit. It serves him right, rejoined I. Nunez is no better than a madman, to he always running

his head against the stone walls of a theatre. If he was in his senses, could he have preferred the hisses and

catcalls of an unfeeling mob, to the ease and dignity he might have commanded under my patronage? Thus

did I inveigh with friendly vehemence against the poet of the Asturias, and disturb the even tenor of my mind

for an event, which the sufferer hailed with joy, and inserted among the wellomened particulars of his

He came to see me within two days, and appeared in high spirits. Santillane, cried he, I am come to receive

your congratulations. My fortune is made, my friend, though my play is marred. You know what a mistake

they made on the first and last night of "The Count of Saldagna;" hissed instead of applauding! You would

have thought all the wild beasts of the forest had been let loose, with their ears fortified against the softening

power of poetry: but the more they bellowed, the better I fared, and they have roared me into a provision for

There was no knowing what to make of this incident in the drama of our poet's adventures. What is all this,

Fabricio? said I: how can theatrical damnation have conjured up such Elysian ecstacy? It is exactly so,

answered he: I told you before that Don Bertrand had thrown in some of the circumstances; and he was fully

convinced that there was no defect but in the taste of the spectators. They might he very good judges; but, if

[Members of parliament, and the ladies, will probably expect a translation of these hard words; but I refer the

former to their dictionaries, to which they bade a long farewell on leaving Eton or Harrow; and the latter to an

extended paraphrase of five acts in the tragedy of Cato. Those of the softer sex who may think the Stoic

philosophy rude and uncouth, will feel their nerves vibrate in unison with the love scenes. Translator.]

Your piece has been illreceived by the public; but against that you may place my entire approbation; and

thus you ought to set your heart at rest. By way of something to balance the bad taste of the age, I shall settle

an annuity of two thousand crowns on you: go to my solicitor, and let him draw the deed. We have been

about it: the treasurer has signed and sealed; my first quarter is paid in advance . . . .

I wished Fabricio joy on the unhappy fate of "The Count of Saldagna," and probably most authors would

have envied his failure more than all the success that ever succeeded. You are in the right, continued he, to

prefer my fortune to my fame. What a lucky peal of disapprobation in double choir! If the public had chosen

to ring the changes on my merits rather than my misdeeds, what would they have done for my pocket? A

mere paltry nothing. The common pay of the theatre might have kept me from starving; but the wind of

popular malice has blown me a comfortable pension, engrossed on safe and legal parchment.

MY secretary could not look at the unexpected good luck of Nunez the poet without envy: he talked of

nothing else for a week. The whims of that baggage, Fortune, said he, are most unaccountable: she delights to

turn her lottery wheel into the lap of a sorry author, while she deals out her disappointments like a step

mother to the race of good ones. I should have no objection, though, if she would throw me up a prize in one

of her vertical progresses. That is likely enough to happen, said I, and sooner than you imagine. Here you are

in her temple; for it is scarcely too presumptuous to call the house of a prime minister the temple of Fortune,

where favours are conferred by wholesale, and votaries grow fat on the spoils of her altar. That is very true,

sir, answered he; but we must have patience, and wait till the happy moment comes. Take my advice while it

is worth having, Scipio, replied I, and make your mind easy: perhaps you are on the eve of some good

appointment. And so it turned out; for within a few days an opportunity offered of employing him

advantageously in my lord duke's service; and I did not suffer the happy moment to pass by.

I was engaged in chat one morning with Don Raymond Caporis, the prime minister's steward, and our

conversation turned on the sources of his excellency's income. My lord, said he, enjoys the commanderies of

all the military orders, yielding a revenue of forty thousand crowns a year; and he is only obliged to wear the

cross of Alcantara. Moreover, his three offices of great chamberlain, master of the home, and high chancellor

of the Indies, bring him in nn income of two hundred thousand crowns; and yet all this is nothing in

comparison of the immense sums which he receives through other transatlantic channels; but you will be

puzzled to guess how. When vessels clear out from Seville or Lisbon for those parts of the world, he ships

wine, oil, grain, and other articles, the produce of his own estate; and his consignments are duty free. With

that perquisite in his pocket, he sells his merchandise for four times its current price in Spain, and then lays

out the money in spices, colouring materials, and other things which cost next to nothing in the new world,

and are sold very dear in Europe. Already has he realized some millions by this traffic, without detracting

CH. XI. Santillane gives Scipio a situation: the latter sets out for New Spain. 357

You will easily account for it, continued he, that the people concerned in carrying on this trade return with

great fortunes in their pockets; for my lord thinks it but reasonable that they should divide their diligence

That shrewd son of chance and opportunity, of whom we are speaking, overheard our conversation, and could

not help interrupting Don Raymond to the following purport. Upon my word, Signor Caporis, I should like to

be one of those people; for I am fond of travelling, and have long wished to see Mexico. Your inclinations as

a tourist shall soon be gratified, said the steward, if Signor de Santillane will not stand in the way of your

wishes. However particular I may think it my duty to be about the persons whom I send to the West Indies in

that capacity, and they are all of my appointment, you shall be placed on the list at all adventures, if your

master wishes it. You will confer on me a particular favour, said I to Don Raymond; be so good as to do it in

kindness to me. Scipio is a young fellow much in my good graces, very capable in business, and will be

found irreproachable in his conduct. In a word, I would as soon answer for him as myself.

That being the case, replied Caporis, he has only to repair immediately to Seville: the ships are to sail for

South America in a month. I shall give him a letter at his departure for a man who will put him in the way of

making a fortune, without the slightest interference in his excellency's dues and profits, which ought to be

Scipio, delighted with his berth, was in haste to set out for Seville with a thousand crowns with which I

furnished him, to make purchases of wine and oil in Andalusia, and enable him to trade on his own bottom in

the West Indies. And yet, overjoyed as he was to make a voyage, and as he hoped his fortune therewithal, he

could not part from me without tears: and the separation raised the waters even from my dry fountains.

No sooner had I parted with Scipio than one of the minister's pages brought me a note conceived in the

following terms: "If Signor de Santillane will take the trouble of calling at the sign of Saint Gabriel, in the

Who can this nameless friend possibly be? said I to myself. What can be the meaning of all this mystery?

Obviously to occasion me the pleasure of a surprise. I attended the summons immediately, and on my arrival

at the place appointed, was not a little astonished to find Don Alphonso de Leyva there. Is it possible!

exclaimed I: you here, my lord? Yes, my dear Gil Blas, answered he with a close compression of my hand in

his, it is Don Alphonso himself. Well! but what brings you to Madrid? said I. You will be not a little startled,

rejoined he, and no less vexed at the occasion of my journey. They have taken my government of Valencia

from me, and the prime minister has sent for me to give an account of my conduct. For a whole quarter of an

hour I was like a man stupefied; then recovering the powers of speech: Of what, said I, are you accused? I

know nothing at all about it, answered he; but my disgrace is probably owing to a visit paid about three

weeks ago to the Cardinal Duke of Lerma, who was banished about a month since to his seat at Denia.

Yes, indeed! cried I in a pet, you may well attribute your misfortune to that imprudent visit: there is no

occasion to look out for causes and effects else where; but give me leave to say that you have not acted with

your usual good sense, in claiming acquaintance with that favourite out of favour. The leap is taken, and the

neck broken, said he; and I have nothing to do but to make the best out of a bad bargain: I shall retire with my

family to our paternal estate at Leyva, where the remnant of my days will glide away in peace and obscurity.

What taunts and teases me, is the requisition of appearing before a haughty minister, who may receive me

with all the insolence of office. How humiliating to the pride of a Spaniard! And yet it is a measure of

CH. XII. Don Alphonso de Leyva comes to Madrid; the motive of his journey a severe affliction to Gil Blas, and a cause of rejoicing subsequent thereon. 358

necessity; but before the degrading ceremony took place, I wanted to talk it over with you. Sir, said I, do not

announce your arrival to the minister, till I have ascertained the nature of the reports to your discredit; for

there are few evils without a remedy. Whatever may be your alleged crimes, you will give me leave, if you

please, to act in the affair as gratitude and friendship shall dictate. With this assurance, I left him at his inn,

As I had taken no active part in state affairs since the two memorials, in which my eloquence was so signally

displayed, I went to look for Carnero, with a view to inquire whether Don Alphonso's government was really

taken from him. He answered in the affirmative, but professed not to know the reason. Finding how things

stood, I determined to apply at headquarters, and to learn the grounds of grievance from his lordship's own

My spirits were really harassed; so that there was no need of putting on the trappings and the suits of woe, to

attract my lord duke's notice. What is the matter, Santillane? said he, as soon as he saw me. I perceive a

marked unhappiness on your countenance, and tears just ready to trickle down your cheeks. Has any one

behaved ill to you? Tell me, and you shall have your revenge. My lord, answered I, in a melancholy tone,

even though my grief would seek to hide itself, it must have vent: my despair is past endurance. The report

goes that Don Alphonso is no longer Governor of Valencia; a severer stroke could not have been inflicted on

me. What say you, Gil Blas? replied the minister in astonishment: what interest can you take in this Don

Alphonso and his government? On this question, I detailed at length my obligations to the Lords of Leyva,

and modestly stated my own interference with the Duke of Lerma, to obtain the appointment for my friend.

When his excellency had heard me through with the most polite and kind attention, he spoke thus: Make

yourself easy, Gil Blas. Besides my entire ignorance of what you have just told me, I must own that I

considered Don Alphonso as the cardinal's creature. Only put yourself in my place: was not the visit to his

eminence a most suspicious circumstance? Yet I am willing to believe that owing his preferment to that

minister, he might have remembered him in his adversity from a motive of pure gratitude. I am sorry for

having displaced a man who owed his elevation to you; but if I have pulled down your handiwork I can build

it up again. I mean to do still more than the Duke of Lerma for you. Your friend Don Alphonso was only

Governor of Valencia; I appoint him Viceroy of Arragon: you may send him word so yourself; and order him

hither to take the oaths. At these words, my feelings changed from extreme grief to an excess of joy, which

completely caricatured the mediocrity of common sense, and made me utter an incoherent rhapsody of

thanks: but the want of method in the madness of my discourse was not taken amiss; and on my hinting that

Don Alphonso was already at Madrid, he told me that I might present him this very day. I ran to the sign of

Saint Gabriel, and communicated my own raptures to Don Caesar's son, by informing him of his new

appointment. He could not believe what I told him; but found it a hard matter to persuade himself; that the

prime minister, though likely enough to be very well disposed towards me, should attend his friendship so far

as to dispose of viceroyalties at my instance. I carried him with me to my lord duke, who received him very

affably, complimented him on his uniform good conduct in his government of Valencia, and finished by

saying that the king, considering him as qualified for a higher station, had named him for the viceroyalty of

Arragon. Besides, added he, your family is of a rank not to disparage the dignity of the office; so that the

Arragonese nobility will have no plea for excepting against the choice of the court.

His excellency made no mention of me, and the public was kept in the dark as to my share in the business;

indeed, this prudent silence was lucky both for Don Alphonso and the minister, since the tongues of defamers

would have been busy in taking to pieces the pretensions of a viceroy who owed his preferment to my

As soon as Don Caesar's son could speak with certainty of his new honours, he sent off an express for

Valencia with the information to his father and Seraphina, who soon arrived in Madrid. Their first object was

to find me out, and ply me thick and threefold with acknowledgments. What a proud and affecting sight for

CH. XII. Don Alphonso de Leyva comes to Madrid; the motive of his journey a severe affliction to Gil Blas, and a cause of rejoicing subsequent thereon. 359

me, to behold the three persons in the world nearest my heart, vying with each other in their testimonies of

affection and gratitude! The pleasure my zeal seemed personally to give them, was equal to the dignity

conferred on their house by the post of viceroy. They even talked with me on a footing of equality, and

scarcely remembered my original distance or servitude in the fervour of their present feelings. But not to

dwell on unnecessary topics, Don Alphonso having taken the oaths and returned thanks, left Madrid with his

family, to take up his abode at Saragossa. He made his public entry with appropriate magnificence; and the

Arragonese caused it to appear, by their cordial reception, that I had a very pretty knack at picking out a

I WAS up to the hilts in joy at having so marvellously metamorphosed an exgovernor into a viceroy; the

Lords of Leyva themselves were not primed and loaded so near to bursting. But very soon I had another

opportunity of employing my credit in the beaten track of friendship; and there is the more occasion to quote

these instances, that my readers may clearly discern with how different a man they are in company, from that

graceless Gil Blas who, under the former ministry, carried on a shameless traffic in the honours and

One day I was waiting in the king's antechamber, in conversation with some noblemen, who, knowing me to

stand well with the prime minister, were not ashamed of taking me by the hand. In the crowd was Don

Gaston de Cogollos, whom I had left a prisoner in the tower of Segovia. He was with Don Andrew de

Tordesillas, the warden. I readily quitted my company to go and renew my acquaintance with my two friends.

If they were astonished at the sight of me, I was no less so to find them here. After mutual greetings, Don

Gaston said: Signor de Santillane, we have many inquiries to make of each other, and this place affords little

opportunity for private intercourse; allow me to request your company where we may open our hearts freely.

I made no objection; we pushed our way through the crowd, and left the palace. Don Gaston's carriage was

ready waiting in the street; we all three got into it, and drove to the great marketplace, where the bull fights

Signor Gil Blas, said Don Andrew on our entrance, at your departure from Segovia you seemed to have

conceived a thorough hatred against the court, and to have formed a settled purpose of abandoning it for ever.

Such was, in fact, my design, answered I; nor were my sentiments at all changed during the lifetime of the

late king; but when the prince his son came to the throne, I had a mind to see whether the new monarch

would know me again. He did so, and received me favourably, with a strong recommendation to the prime

minister, who admitted me to his friendship, and took me more into his confidence than ever did the Duke of

Lerma. This, Signor Don Andrew, is my story. And now tell me whether you still hold your office in the

tower of Segovia. No, indeed! answered he; my lord duke has removed me, and put another in my room. He

probably considered me as entirely devoted to his predecessor. And I, said Don Gaston, was set at liberty for

the contrary reason; the prime minister was no sooner informed that my imprisonment was by the Duke of

Lerma's order, than he ordered me to be released. The present business, Signor Gil Blas, is to relate the

The first thing I did, continued he, after thanking Don Andrew for his kind attentions during my confinement,

was to repair to Madrid. I presented myself before the Count Duke of Olivarez, who said: You need not be

apprehensive of any blemish on your character in consequence of your late misfortune; you are honourably

acquitted: nay, your innocence is so much the more satisfactorily established, as the Marquis of Villareal,

with whom you were supposed to be implicated, was not guilty. Though a Portuguese, and related to the

CH. XIII. Gil Blas meets Don Gaston de Cogollos and Don Andrew de Tordesillas at the drawingroom, and adjourns with them to a more convenient place. The story of Don Gaston and Donna Helena de Galisteo concluded. Santillane renders some service to Tordesillas. 360

Duke of Braganza, he is less in his interests than in those of the king my master. That connection, therefore,

ought not to have been imputed to you as a crime; but, to repair your wrongs, the king has given you a

lieutenant's commission in the Spanish guards. This I accepted, begging it as a favour of his excellency to

allow me, before I joined my regiment, to go and see my aunt, Donna Eleonora de Laxarilla, at Coria. The

minister gave me leave of absence for a month, and I departed with only one servant

We had got beyond Colmenar, and were threading a narrow pass between two mountains, when we came

within sight of a gentleman defending himself bravely against three men, who all fell upon him together. I did

not hesitate about going to his aid; but hastened forward and planted myself by his side. I remarked while we

were fighting, that our enemies were masked, and that we had to do with expert swordsmen. But we

triumphed over the united advantages of their skill and disparity. I ran one of the three through the body; he

fell from his horse, and the two others immediately betook themselves to flight. The victory indeed was

scarcely less fatal to us than to the wretch whom I had killed, for we were both dangerously wounded. But

conceive my surprise, when I discovered the gentleman to be Combados, the husband of Donna Helena. He

was no less astonished at recognizing me as his defender. Ah, Don Gaston! exclaimed he, was it you, then,

who came to my assistance? When you took my part so generously, you little thought it was the person who

had snatched your mistress from you. I really did not know it, answered I; but though I had, do you think I

could have wavered about doing as I have done? Can you entertain so ill an opinion of me, as to believe my

soul so sordid? No, no, replied he; I think better of you; and should I die of my wounds, it will be my prayer

that yours may not disable you from profiting by my death. Combados, said I, though I have not yet forgotten

Donna Helena, know that I do not pant after the possession of her charms at the expense of your life; so far

from it, that I congratulate myself on having contributed to your rescue from assassination, since by so doing

While we were communing together, my servant dismounted; and drawing near to the gentleman stretched at

his length, took off his mask, when Combados, with sensations of gratitude for his deliverance, distinctly

traced the features. It is Caprara, exclaimed he; that treacherous cousin who, in mere disgust at having missed

a rich inheritance which he had unjustly disputed with me, has long since cherished a murderous design

against my life, and fixed on this day to put it in execution; but heaven has turned him over to its determined

While this conversation was going on, our blood was flowing at the same rate, and we were becoming more

exhausted every minute. Nevertheless, disabled as we were, we had strength enough to reach the town of

Villar�jo, which lies within gunshot or two from the field of battle. At the very first house of call we sent for

surgeons. The most expert came at our summons. He examined our wounds, and reported them as dangerous.

After taking off the bandages and dressing them a second time, he pronounced those of Don Blas to be

mortal. Of mine he thought more favourably, and the event corresponded with his prognostic.

Combados, finding himself consigned to the grave, thought only of due preparation for a most serious event.

He sent an express to his wife, with an account for what had happened, particularizing his present sad

condition. Donna Helena soon arrived at Villar�jo. Her mind was drawn different ways by two opposite

occasions of distress; the hazard of her husband's life, and the fear of feeling the revival of a

halfextinguished flame at the sight of me. This sight occasioned her to experience a terrible agitation.

Madam, said Don Blas, when she appeared in his presence, you are come just in time to receive my farewell.

I am at the point of death, and I consider my fate as a punishment from heaven for having taken you from

Don Gaston by a feint: far from murmuring at it, I exhort you with my last breath to restore to him a heart

which I had stolen from him. Donna Helena answered him only by her tears: and indeed it was the best

answer she could make; for she had neither forgotten her first love, nor the artifices whereby she had been

It happened as the surgeon had anticipated, that in less than three days Combados died of his wounds, while

mine on the contrary wore the appearance of convalescence. The young widow, whom no earthly

considerations could detach from the care of transporting her late husband's remains to Coria, that they might

be deposited with due honours in the family vault, left Villar�jo on her return, after inquiring, merely as a

matter of course, how I was going on. As soon as I was well enough to be removed, I bent my course to

Coria, where my recovery was soon ascertained. My aunt, Donna Eleonora, and Don George de Galisteo,

were determined that my marriage with Helena should take place forthwith, lest some new caprice of fortune

should part us once more. The ceremony was privately performed, on account of the late melancholy event,

and within a few days I returned to Madrid with Donna Helena. As my leave of absence had expired, I was

afraid lest the minister should have superseded me in my lieutenancy; but he had not filled up the vacancy,

Thus am I, continued Cogollos, lieutenant of the Spanish guards, and my situation is exactly to my mind. The

circle of my friends is respectable and pleasant, and I live at my ease among them. Would I could say as

much! exclaimed Don Andrew: but I am very far from being satisfied with my lot; I have lost my

appointment, which was not without its advantages, and have no friends of sufficient interest to procure me a

better berth. Excuse me, Signor Don Andrew, cried I, with a sort of upbraiding smile, you have a friend in me

who may chance to be better than no friend at all. I have told you already that I am a greater favourite with

my lord duke than with the Duke of Lerma; and will you tell me to my face that you have no interest at court?

Have you not already experienced the contrary? Recollect that, through the archbishop of Grenada's powerful

recommendation, I procured you a nomination for Mexico, where you would have made your fortune, if love

had not stepped in and marred it at Alicant. My means are now more extensive, since I have the ear of the

prime minister. I give myself up to you then, replied Tordesillas; but do not send me into New Spain, though

Here we were interrupted by Donna Helena, who came into the room, and improved even upon the visions of

my fancy by the reality of her charms. Cogollos introduced me as the companion who had solaced the tedious

hours of his imprisonment. Yes, madam, said I to Donna Helena, my conversation did indeed soothe his

sorrows, for it turned on you. The compliment was not thrown away, and I took my leave with repeated

congratulations. With respect to Tordesillas, I assured him that within a week he should know how far my

Nor were these mere words. On the very next day, the opportunity occurred. Santillane, said his excellency,

the place of governor in the royal prison of Valladolid is vacant: it is worth more than three hundred pistoles

a year; and is yours if you will accept of it. Not if it were worth ten thousand ducats, answered I, for it would

carry me away from your lordship. But, replied the minister, you may fill it by deputy, and only visit

occasionally. That is as it may be, rejoined I; but I shall only accept it on condition of resigning in favour of

Don Andrew de Tordesillas, a brave and loyal gentleman; I should like to give him this place in

This plea made the minister laugh heartily, and say: As far as I see, Gil Blas, you mean to make yourself a

general patron. Even so be it, my friend; the vacancy is yours for Tordesillas; but tell me unfeignedly what

fellowfeeling you have in the business, for you are not such a fool as to throw away your interest for

nothing. My lord, answered I, Don Andrew charged me nothing for all his acts of friendship, and should not a

man repay his obligations? You are become highly moral and selfmortified, replied his excellency; rather

more so than under the last administration. Precisely so, rejoined I; then evil communication corrupted my

principles; bargain and sale were the order of the day, and I conformed to the established practice: now, all

preferment is allotted on the footing of a meritorious free gift, and my integrity shall not be the last to fall in

ONE day, after dinner, a fancy seized me to go and see the poet of the Asturias, feeling a sort of curiosity to

know on what floor he lodged. I repaired to the house of Signor Don Bertrand Gomex Del Ribero, and asked

for Nunez. He does not live here now, said the porter, but over the way, in apartments at the back of the

house. I went thither, and crossing a small court, entered an unfurnished parlour, where my friend Fabricio

was sitting at table, doing the honours to five or six guests from the hamlet and liberty of Parnassus.

They were at the latter end of a feast, and of course at the beginning of an affray; but as soon as they

perceived me, a dead silence succeeded to their obstreperous argumentation. Nunez rose from his seat with

much pomp and circumstance of politeness to receive me, saying: Gentlemen, Signor de Santillane! He does

me the honour to visit me under this humble roof; as the favourite of the prime minister, you will all join with

me in tendering your humble services. At this introduction, the worshipful company got up and made their

best bows; for my rank could not fail of procuring me respect from the manufacturers of dedications. Though

I was neither hungry nor thirsty, it was impossible not to sit down and drink a toast in such society.

My presence appearing to be a restraint, Gentlemen, said I, it should seem that I have interrupted your

conversation: resume it, or you drive me away. My learned friends, said Fabricio, were discussing the

"Iphigenia" of Euripides. The bachelor, Melchior de Vill�gas, a clever man of the first rank in the republic of

letters, resumed the topic by asking Don Jacinto de Romerate which was the point of interest in that tragedy.

Don Jacinto ascribed it to the imminent danger of Iphigenia. The bachelor contended, offering to prove his

proposition by all the evidence admissible at the bar of logic or criticism, that the danger of a trumpery girl

had nothing to do with the real sympathy of that affecting piece. What has to do with it then? bawled the old

licentiate Gabriel of Leon indignantly. It turns with the wind, replied the bachelor.

The whole company burst into a shout of laughter at this assertion, which they were far from considering as

serious; and I myself thought that Melchior had only launched it by way of adding the zest of wit to the

severity of critical discussion. But I was out in my calculation respecting the character of that eminent

scholar: he had not a grain of sprightliness or pleasantry in his whole composition. Laugh as you please,

gentlemen, replied he, very coolly; I maintain that there is no circumstance but the wind, unless it be the

weathercock, to interest, to strike, to rouse the passions of the spectator. Figure to yourselves a multitudinous

army, assembled for the purpose of laying siege to Troy; take into account the eager haste of the officers and

common men to carry their enterprise into execution, that they may return with their best legs foremost into

Greece, where they have left everything most dear to them, their household gods, their wives and their

children: all this while a mischievous wind from the wrong quarter keeps them portbound at Aulis, and, as it

were, drives a nail into the very head of the expedition; so that till better weather, it was impossible to go and

lay siege to Priam's town. Wind and weather therefore make up the interest of this tragedy. My good wishes

are with the Greeks: my whole faculties are wrapped up in the success of their design; the sailing of their fleet

is with me the only hinge of the fable, and I look at the danger of Iphigenia with somewhat of a

selfinterested complacency, because by her death the winding up of the story into a brisk and favourable

As soon as Vill�gas had finished his criticism, the laugh burst out more than ever, at his expense. Nunez was

sly enough to side with him, that a fairer scope and broader mark might be presented to the shafts of

malicious wit which were let fly from all the quarters in the shipman's card, at this poster of the sea and land.

But the bachelor, eyeing them all with sublime indifference and supreme contempt, gave them to understand

how low in the list of the ignorant and vulgar they ranked in his estimation. Every moment did I expect to see

these vapouring spirits kindle into a blaze, and wage war against the hairy honours of each other's brainless

skulls: but the joke was not carried to that length; they confined their hostilities to opprobrious epithets, and

CH. XIV. Santillane's visit to the poet Nunez, the company and conversation. 363

After their departure, I asked Fabricio why he had separated himself from his treasurer, and whether they had

quarrelled. Quarrelled! answered he: Heaven defend me from such a misfortune! I am on better terms than

ever with Signor Don Bertrand, who gave his consent to my living apart from him: here therefore I receive

my friends, and take my pleasure with them unmolested. You know very well that I am not of a temper to lay

up treasures for those who are to come after me; and as it happens luckily, I am now in circumstances to give

my little classical entertainments every day. I am delighted at it, my dear Nunez, replied I, and once more

wish you joy on the success of your last tragedy: the great Lope, by his eight hundred dramatic pieces, never

made a quarter of the money which you have got by the damnation of your "Count de Saldagna."

For nearly a month his excellency had been saying to me every day: Santillane, the time is approaching, when

I shall call your choicest powers of address into action; but the time that was coming never came. It is a long

lane, however, where there is no turning; and his excellency at length spoke to me nearly as follows: They

say that there is, in the company of comedians at Toledo, a young actress of much note for her personal and

professional fascinations; it is affirmed that she dances and sings like all the muses and graces put together,

and that the whole theatre rings with applause at her performance: to these perfections is added matchless and

irresistible beauty. Such a star should only shine within the circle of a court. The king has a taste for the

stage, for music, and for dancing: nor must he be debarred from the pleasure of seeing and hearing such a

prodigy. I have determined on sending you to Toledo, that you may judge for yourself whether she really is

so extraordinary an actress: on your feeling of her merit my measures shall be taken; for I have unlimited

I undertook to bring his lordship a good account of this business, and made my arrangements for setting out

with one servant, but not in the minister's livery, by way of conducting matters more warily; and that

precaution relished well with his excellency. On my arrival at Toledo, I had scarcely alighted at the inn, when

the landlord, taking me for some country gentleman, said: Please your honour, you are probably come to be

present at the august ceremony of an Auto da F� tomorrow. I answered in the affirmative, the more

completely to mislead him, and keep my own counsel. You will see, replied he, one of the prettiest

processions you ever saw in your life: there are said to be more than a hundred prisoners, and ten of them are

In good truth, next morning, before sunrise, I heard all the bells in the town peal merrily; and the design of

their bob majors was to acquaint the people that the pastime was about to begin. Curious to see what sort of

a recreation it was, I dressed in a hurry, and posted to the scene of action. All about that quarter, and along

the streets where the procession was to pass, were scaffolds, on one of which I purchased a standing. The

Dominicans walked first, preceded by the banner of the Inquisition. These Christian fathers were immediately

followed by the hapless victims of the holy office, selected for this day's burntoffering. These devoted

wretches walked one by one with their head and feet bare, each of them with a taper in his hand, and a fiery,

not baptismal godfather by his side. Some had large yellow scapularies, worked with crosses of St Andrew, in

red; others wore sugarloaf caps of paper, illustrated with flames, and diabolical figures of all sorts by way of

As I looked narrowly at these objects of religious gaze, with a compassion in my heart which might have

been construed criminal, had it run over from my eyes, I fancied that the reverend Father Hilary and his

companion brother Ambrose were among those who figured in the sugarloaf caps. They passed too near for

me to be deceived. What do I see? thought I inwardly: heaven, wearied out with the wicked lives of these two

scoundrels, has given them up to the justice of the Inquisition! My whole frame trembled at the thought, and

my spirits were scarcely equal to support me from fainting. My connection with these knaves, the adventure

at Xelva, all our pranks in partnership rushed upon my memory, and I did not know how sufficiently to thank

God for having preserved me from St Andrew's crosses and the painted devils on the paper caps.

When the ceremony was over, I returned to the inn, with my heart sickening at the dreadful sight; but painful

impressions soon wear away, and I thought only of my commission and its due accomplishment. I waited

with impatience for playtime, as the moment and scene of my commencing operations. On the opening of

the doors I repaired to the theatre, and took my seat next to a knight of Alcantara. We soon got into chat. Sir,

said I, the players here have been represented to me in very favourable terms: may I give credit to general

report? The company is not contemptible, replied the knight: they have some firstrate performers; among

the rest, the peerless Lucretia, an actress of fourteen, who will astonish you: and she plays one of her best

On the drawing up of the curtain, two actresses came on, with every advantage of dress and stage effect: but

neither of them could possibly be the object of my search. At length Lucretia made her appearance at the

back scene, and walked forwards amidst a thunder of applause. Ah! this is she, indeed! thought I! and a

delicate specimen of loveliness, as I am a sinner! In her very first speech she proved herself a child of nature,

with energy and conception far above her years; and the approbation of a provincial audience was confirmed

by my metropolitan judgment. The knight was happy to find I liked her, and assured me that if I had heard

her sing, my ears might have rejoiced to the sorrow of my heart. Her dancing, too, he represented as not less

formidable to the free will of lordly man. I inquired what youth, blessed as the immortal gods, had the

exquisite happiness of bringing himself to beggary for so sweet a girl. She is under no avowed protection,

said he; and scandal has not coupled her name with private licence; but Lucretia must take care of herself, for

she is under the wing of her aunt Estella; and there is not an actress in the company so warmly fledged for

At the name of Estella, I inquired with some eagerness who she was. One of our best performers, said my

informant. She does not play tonight, to our great loss, for her cast is that of abigails, and she humours them

to perfection. A little too broad, perhaps, but that is a fault on the right side. From the features of the

description, there could be no doubt but this must be Laura; that lady so notorious in these memoirs, whom I

To make assurance doubly sure, I went behind the scenes after the play. There she was, in the greenroom,

flirting with some men of fashion, who probably endured the aunt for the sake of the niece. I came up to pay

my devotions; but whim, or perhaps revenge for my cutting and running from Grenada, determined her to put

on the stranger, and receive my compliments with so discouraging a coldness, as to throw me into some little

confusion. Instead of laughing it off, I was fool enough to be angry, and withdrew in a choleric determination

to return next day. Laura shall smart for this! said I; her niece shall not appear at court; I will tell the minister

that she dances like a she bear, has formed her bravura between the scream of a peahen and the cackle of a

Such was my scheme of revenge, but it proved abortive. Just as I was going out of town, a footboy brought

me the following note: "Forget and forgive, and follow the bearer." I obeyed, and found Laura at her

She rose to welcome me, saying: Signor Gil Blas, you have every reason to be offended at your reception

behind the scenes, which was out of character between such old friends, but I really was most abominably

disconcerted. Just as you came up, one of our gentlemen had brought me some scandalous stories about my

niece, whose honour has always been dearer to me than my own. On coming to myself, I immediately sent

my servant to find you out, with the intention of making you amends today. You have done so already, my

dear Laura, said I, let us therefore talk over old times. You may remember that I left you in a very ticklish

predicament, when conscience and the fear of punishment drove me so precipitately from Grenada. How did

you get off with your Portuguese lover? Easily enough, answered Laura: do not you know that in those cases

I faced the Marquis of Marialva out, that you were my very brother, and drew upon my impudence for the

support of my credit. Do you not see, said I to my Portuguese dupe, that this is all the contrivance of jealousy

and rage? My rival, Narcissa, infuriated at my possession of a heart which she had vainly attempted to gain,

has bribed the candlesnuffer to assert that he has seen me as Arsenia's waitingwoman at Madrid. It is an

abominable falsehood; the widow of Don Antonio Coello has always been too high in her notions, to be the

hangeron of a theatrical mistress. Besides, what completely disproves the whole allegation, is my brother's

precipitate retreat: if he were here, it would be a subject of evidence; but Narcissa must have devised some

These reasons, continued Laura, were not the most convincing in the world, but they did very well for the

marquis; and that good, easy nobleman continued his confidence till his return to Portugal. This happened

soon after your departure; and Zapata's wife had the pleasure of seeing me lose what she could not win. After

this, I stayed some years longer at Grenada, till the company was broken up in consequence of some

squabbles, which will take place in mimic as well as in real life: some went to Seville, others to Cordova; and

I came to Toledo, where I have been for these ten years with my niece Lucretia, whose performance you must

This was too much to be taken gravely. Laura inquired why I laughed. Can that be a question? said I. You

have neither brother nor sister, one or other of which is a necessary ingredient in an aunt. Besides, when I

calculate in my mind the lapse of time since our last separation, and compare that period with the age of your

niece, it is more than possible that your relationship may be in a nearer degree of kin.

I understand you, replied Don Antonio's widow, with something like a moral tinge of red in her cheek; you

are an accurate chronologist! There is no garbling facts in defiance of your memory. Well, then! Lucretia is

my daughter by the Marquis of Marialva: it was extremely wrong, but I cannot conceal it from you. The

confession must indeed be a shock to your modesty, said I, after telling me yourself what pranks you played

with the hospital steward at Zamora. I must tell you moreover that Lucretia is an article of so superior a

quality as to render you a public benefactor by having thrown her into the market. It were to be wished that

the stolen embraces of all your fraternity might be blessed with fruitfulness, if they could secure to

Should any sarcastic reader, comparing this passage with some circumstances related while I was the

marquis's secretary, suspect me of being entitled to dispute the honours of paternity with that nobleman, I

I laid open my principal adventures to Laura in my turn, as well as the present state of my affairs. She

listened with interest, and said: Friend Santillane, you seem to play a principal part on the stage of the world,

and I congratulate you most heartily. Should Lucretia be engaged at Madrid, I flatter myself she will find a

powerful protector in Signor de Santillane. Doubt it not, answered I: your daughter may have her engagement

whenever you please; I can promise you that, without presuming too much on my interest. I take you at your

word, replied Laura, and would set out tomorrow, were I not under articles to this company. An order from

court will cut the knot of any articles, rejoined I; and that I take upon myself: you shall have it within a week.

It is an act of chivalry to rescue Lucretia from Toledo: such a pretty little actress belongs to the royal court, as

Lucretia came into the room just as I was talking of her. The goddess Hebe herself never looked better in her

best days: it was nature in the bud, exhaling the sweets of her earliest bloom, but promising a more luxuriant

waste of treasure. She was just up; and her natural beauty, without the aid of art, communicated the most

rapturous sensations. Come, niece; said her mother, thank the gentleman for all his kindness to us: he is an

old friend of mine, who ranks high at court, and undertakes to get us both an engagement at the theatre royal.

The little girl seemed to be much pleased, and made me a low curtsey, saying with an enchanting smile: I

most humbly thank you for your obliging intention; but, by taking me from a partial audience, are you certain

that I shall not be looked down upon by that of Madrid? I may but lose by the exchange. I remember hearing

my aunt say, that she has seen players most favourably received in one town, and hissed off the stage in

another; this absolutely frightens me; beware therefore of exposing me to the derision of the court, and

yourself to its reproaches. Lovely Lucretia, answered I, we have neither of us anything to fear; I am rather

apprehensive lest, by the havoc you will make among hearts, you should excite rivalships and kindle discord

among the courtiers. My niece's fears, said Laura, are better founded than yours; but I hope they will both

prove vain: however feeble may be Lucretia's charms of person, her talents as an actress are at least above

We continued the conversation for some time: and I could gather, from Lucretia's share in it, that she was a

girl of superior talents. On taking leave, I assured them that they should immediately receive a summons to

ON my return, I found my lord duke impatient to be informed of my success. Have you seen her? said he: is

she worth transplanting? My lord, answered I, fame, which generally runs beyond all discretion in its report

of beauty, has erred on the side of parsimony in its estimate of the matchless young Lucretia; she is all that

youthful poets fancy when they feign, for personal attractions, and all that veteran managers seek when they

Is it possible? exclaimed the minister with a satisfaction which involuntarily peeped out at his eyes, and made

me think he had some selfish hankerings after the article of my marketing at Toledo; is it possible? and is she

really so charming a creature? When you see her, replied I, you will own that any verbal picture of her

perfections must be altogether inadequate to their due description. His excellency then requiring a minute

account of my journey, I gave him all the particulars, not excepting Laura's story, and Lucretia's parentage.

His lordship was delighted at the latter circumstance, and enjoined me, with a cordial compliment on my skill

in such delicate negotiations, to finish as auspiciously as I had begun my undertaking.

I went to look for Carnero, and told him that it was his excellency's pleasure he should make out an order for

the admission of Estella and Lucretia, actresses from the Toledo theatre, into his majesty's company. Say you

so, Signor de Santillane? answered Carnero with a sarcastic leer; you shall not be kept long in suspense, since

you take so marked an interest in the fortunes of these two ladies. He expedited the order in my presence, and

within a week the mother and daughter sent me notice of their arrival. I immediately hastened to their lodging

near the theatre, and after an interchange of thanks on their part, and assurances of continued support on

Their names were announced in the bills as two new actresses, engaged by the special mandate of the court.

They made their first appearance in a play, which they had been accustomed to perform in at Toledo with

CH. II. Santillane makes his report to the minister, who commissions him to send for Lucretia. The first appearance of that actress before the court. 367

Novelty is the very life and soul of theatrical entertainments. The house was uncommonly crowded, and I of

course was among the audience. I was rather frightened before the curtain drew up. Prejudiced as I was in

favour of the candidates, my alarm was in proportion to my interest. But when once they were fairly on the

boards, the din of welcome quieted all my apprehensions. Estella was considered as a firstrate actress in

comic parts, and Lucretia as a female Roscius in heroines and lovesick damsels. But the love which she

feigned herself, she really kindled in the hearts of the spectators. Some admired the beauty of her eyes, others

were touched with the plaintive sweetness of her voice, and all, bowing to the triumph of youth, vivacity, and

My lord duke, who took an uncommon interest in this theatrical event, was at the play that evening. I saw

him leave his box at the end of the piece, with evident approbation of our new performers. Curious to know

whether they equalled his expectations, I followed him home, and into his closet, saying: Well, my lord, is

your excellency well pleased with little Marialva? My excellency, answered he with a sly smile, must be very

difficult to be pleased, not to confirm the public voice: yes, indeed, my good friend, I am enraptured with

your Lucretia, and firmly believe that the king will not see her without emotion.

GREAT was the noise about the court on this double acquisition to the theatre; it became the topic of

conversation next day at the king's levee. The young Lucretia was most in the mouths of the nobility, who

described her so feelingly, that his majesty could not but imbibe the impression, though he was too politic to

To make amends for that restraint, he questioned the minister as soon as he was alone with him, who stated

the success of a young actress from Toledo on the evening before. Her name, added he, is Lucretia; and it is

really a pity that ladies of her profession should ever have been christened by any less chaste appellative. She

is an acquaintance of Santillane, who spoke so highly of her, that I thought it right to engage her for your

majesty's company. The king smiled at the mention of my name, recollecting, perhaps, through what channel

he became acquainted with Catalina, and foreboding a like assistance on the present occasion. Count, said he

to the minister, I mean to see this Lucretia act tomorrow, and will thank you to let her know it.

I was of course sent with this intelligence to the two actresses. Great news! said I to Laura, whom I saw first:

you will have the sovereign of the Spanish monarchy among your audience tomorrow, as the minister has

desired me to inform you. I cannot doubt but you will both of you do your best to prove yourselves worthy of

a royal command; but I would advise you to choose a piece with music and dancing, that all Lucretia's

accomplishments may be displayed at one view. We will take your counsel, answered Laura, and it shall not

be our faults if his majesty is disappointed. That can scarcely happen, said I, seeing Lucretia come into the

room in an undress, which shewed her person to more advantage than all the wardrobe of the theatre: he will

be the more delighted with your lovely niece, because dancing and music are his principal pleasures: he may

even be tempted to throw her the handkerchief. I do not at all wish, replied Laura, that he should be that way

inclined; allpowerful monarch as he is, he might not find the accomplishment of his desires so easy.

Lucretia, though brought up behind the scenes, is not without virtuous principles; whatever pleasure she may

take in applause and professional reputation, she had much rather preserve the character of a good girl, than

Aunt, said little Marialva, joining in the conversation, why conjure up monsters only to lay them again? I

shall never be at a loss to repel the king's advances, because his taste is too refined to stoop so low. But,

charming Lucretia, said I, if such a thing should happen, would you be cruel enough to let him languish like a

common lover? Why not? answered she. Setting virtue aside, my vanity would he more flattered by my own

CH. III. Lucretia's popularity; her appearance before the king; his passion, and its consequences. 368

resistance than by the tribute of his affection. I was not a little surprised to hear a pupil of Laura's school talk

so properly, and to find that with so free an education she imbibed such unusual principles of morality.

The king, impatient to see Lucretia, went to the play next evening. The piece was got up with music and

dancing, to shew our young actress off to the best advantage. My eyes were fixed on his majesty; but he

completely eluded my penetration by an obstinate gravity. On the following day, the minister said: Santillane,

I have just been with the king, who has been talking about Lucretia, with so much animation, that I doubt not

but he is smitten: and, as I told him that you had sent for her from Toledo, he expressed a wish to confer with

you in private on the subject: orders are given for your admittance; run, and bring me back an account of

I flew to the palace, and found the king alone. He was walking up and down, in much apparent perplexity. He

put several questions to me about Lucretia, made me relate her history, and then asked whether the little jade

had not been tampering with chastity already. I boldly assured him to the contrary, though such pledges were

somewhat hazardous in general; but mine was taken, and gave the prince much pleasure. If so, replied he, I

select you for my agent with Lucretia; let her become acquainted with her triumph from your lips. He then

put a box of jewels into my hand, worth fifty thousand crowns, with a message begging her acceptance of

Before I went on my errand, I reported progress to my lord duke. That minister, I thought, would be more

vexed than rejoiced at it; supposing that he had his own views of gallantry towards Lucretia, and would learn

with regret the rivalship of his master; but I was mistaken. Far from appearing chagrined, his joy was so

excessive, that it would ooze out at his tongue, in words which were not quite lost on the hearer. "Indeed,

friend Philip! then I have you in my clutches: while your pleasures lead you, your business must be left to

me!" This side speech explained to me the plot; an amorous prince, and a longheaded minister! My orders

were to execute my commission as speedily as possible, with the assurance that the first lord in the land

would be proud to stand in my shoes. Besides, there was no pimp of rank, as in the former case, to seize the

profit and leave the infamy with me; the honour and emolument were now exclusively my own.

Thus did his excellency relish the ingredients of pandarism to my palate; and I tasted them with the

greediness, but not without the qualms of an epicure; for since my imprisonment I had become regenerate,

and did not take pride in dirty work, because my employer washed his hands in perfumed water. But though

conscience was awake, interest was not asleep. I was no longer a villain for the fun of it; but my compliance

would confirm my footing with the minister, and him it was my duty, at all events, to please.

My first appeal was to Laura in private. I opened the negotiation delicately, and presented my credentials in

the form of the jewelbox. The lady was thrown off her guard by the display. Signor Gil Blas, cried she, you

are one of my oldest friends, and I must not play the hypocrite: straitlaced morals are inconsistent with the

discipline of my sect. Nothing can be more delightful to me than a conquest, which throws such a game into

our hands. But, between ourselves, I am afraid Lucretia is not so enlightened as we are; though a daughter of

Thalia, she has taken the betterbehaved goddesses for her schoolmistresses, and given a rebuff to two

young noblemen of amiable manners and large fortunes. They were not kings, you will say, and truly we may

hope that Lucretia's virtue will be too undisciplined to stand a royal siege; but you must remember the event

is hazardous, and I shall not interpose my authority to compel her. If, far from thinking herself honoured by

the fleeting passion of the king, she should revolt from his advances with disdain, let not our illustrious

sovereign be offended at her reserve. But do you come back hither tomorrow, and carry back either the

I had no doubt but Laura would tutor Lucretia in the school of timeserving morality, and depended much on

her instruction. It was therefore no small surprise to find that Laura worked as much against wind and tide to

launch her daughter into the tradewind of evil, as other maternal pilots to set the sails of theirs in the

CH. III. Lucretia's popularity; her appearance before the king; his passion, and its consequences. 369

contrary monsoon of good; and what is still more unaccountable, Lucretia, after tasting of royal delights, was

so completely surfeited with the banquet as to throw herself at once into the arms of the church, where she

professed, fell sick, and died of grief. Laura, disconsolate for the loss of her daughter, and the part she herself

had acted in the tragedy, retired into a convent of female penitents, and did penance for the unhallowed

pleasures of her former life. The king was affected by his sudden loss, but soon found comfort in some other

pursuit. The premier talked little on the subject, but thought so much the more, as the reader will easily

MY feelings were all alive to Lucretia's ill fate, and my own infamy in having contributed to it. The royal

wants of the lover were no excuse for my taking the post of cheapener, and I determined to resign the staff of

office in that department, entreating the minister to employ me in some other. He was charmed with my nice

sense of honour, and promised to comply with my scruples, laying open his inmost heart in the following

Some years before I was in office, chance threw me across a lady of such shape and beauty as induced me to

trace her home. I learned that she was a Genoese, by name Donna Margarita Spinola, supporting herself at

Madrid on the income arising from her beauty. It was reported that Don Francisco de Val�asar, an officer

about the court, a rich man, an old man, and a married man, laid out his money very freely on this hazardous

speculation. These rumours ought to have deterred me; but they only whetted my desires to share with

Val�asar. To gain my end, I had recourse to a female broker of tenderness, who adjusted the terms of a

private interview with the Genoese; and the price current being settled, the traffic was frequently repeated; it

Let that be as it may, a choice boy was in the fulness of time produced to the club, and the mother

complimented every member individually in private with the credit: but we were each of us too modest to

acknowledge a bantling which had so probable a claim upon a better father; so that the Genoese was

compelled to maintain him on the profits of her profession: this she did for eighteen years, and dying at the

end of that period, has left her son without a farthing, and what is worse, without an idea or an

Such, continued his lordship, is the confidence I meant to repose in you, and I shall now lay open the great

design I have formed, to draw this unfortunate child from his obscurity, reverse the colour of his fate, raise

At so extravagant a project it was impossible not to be open mouthed. What, sir, exclaimed I, can your

excellency have adopted so strange a resolution! Excuse my freedom; but my zeal cannot restrain itself. You

will be of my mind, replied he with eagerness, when I shall have explained to you my motives. I have no

mind that my estates should descend in the collateral line. You will tell me, that I am not so old as to despair

of having children by Madame d'Olivarez. But every one is best judge of his own condition: know therefore

that there is not a receipt in the whole extent of chemistry which I have not tried, but without effect, to appear

once again in the character of a father. Wherefore, since fortune, stepping in to cover the defects of nature,

presents me with a child whose parent after all I may actually be, he is mine by adoption; that is a settled

When I found the minister determined, I no longer argued against his resolution, as knowing him to be a man

who would rather do a foolish act of his own, than adopt a wise suggestion of another. It only remains now,

added he, to educate Don Henry Philip de Guzman; for by that name I intend him to be known in the world,

till the time arrives when he may aspire to higher dignities. You, my dear Santillane, I have chosen to

superintend his conduct: I have full confidence in your talents and friendship, to regulate his household,

direct his studies, and make him an accomplished gentleman. I would willingly have declined the office, as

never having exercised the craft of a pedagogue, which required much more genius and solidity than mine;

but he shut my mouth by saying it was his absolute determination that I should be tutor to this adopted son,

whom he designed for the first offices of the monarchy. As a bribe for my compliance, his lordship increased

my little income with a pension of a thousand crowns on the commandery of Mambra.

THE act of adoption was soon legalized with the king's consent and good pleasure. Don Henry Philip de

Guzman, as this descendant from a committee of fathers was named, became acknowledged successor to the

earldom of Olivarez and the duchy of San Lucar. The minister, to give the act all possible publicity,

communicated it through Carnero to the ambassadors and grandees of Spain, who were somewhat startled.

The jokers of Madrid were not insensible to the ridicule, and the satirical poets made their harvest of so fine a

I asked my lord duke where my pupil was. Here in town, answered he, with an aunt from whom I shall

remove him as soon as you have got a house ready. This I did immediately, and furnished it magnificently.

When my establishment was complete in servants and officers, his excellency sent for this equivocal

production, this spurious offset from the renowned stock of the Guzmans. The lad was tall and personable.

Don Henry, said his lordship, pointing to me, this gentleman is to be your tutor and introduce you into the

world; he has my entire confidence, and an unlimited authority over you. After much good advice, and many

As soon as we got thither, I introduced him to his household, and explained the nature of each individual's

employment. He did not seem at all disconcerted at the change of circumstances, but received the obeisances

of his dependants as if he had been a lord by nature, and not by chance. He was not without motherwit, but

ignorant in a deplorable degree; he could scarcely read and write. I gave him masters for the Latin grammar,

geography, history, and fencing. A dancingmaster of course was not forgotten; but in an affair of the first

consequence, selection was difficult, for there were more eminent professors of that art in Madrid than of all

While I was pondering on this difficulty, a man gaudily dressed came into the courtyard and inquired for

me. I went down, supposing him to be at least a knight of some military or privileged order. Signor de

Santillane, said he, with a profusion of bows which anticipated his line in life, I am come to offer you my

services as Don Henry's governor. My name is Martin Ligero, and I have, thank heaven, some reputation in

the world. I have no occasion to canvass for scholars; that is all very well for petty dancingmasters! My

custom is to wait till I am sent for; but being a sort of appendage to the house of Guzman, and having taught

its various branches for a long period, I thought it a point of respect to wait on you first. I perceive, answered

I, that you are just the man we want What are your terms? Four double pistoles a month, answered he, and I

give but two lessons a week. Four doubloons a month! cried I, that is an exorbitant price. Exorbitant! rejoined

he with astonishment; why, it is not more than eight times as much as you would give to a mathematical

There was no resisting so ludicrous a comparison of merit; I laughed out right, and asked Signor Ligero

whether he really thought his talents worth more than those of the first proficients in learning and science.

Most assuredly, said he; at least, if you measure our pretensions by their respective utility. What sort of

machines may those be which are fashioned under their hands? Jointless puppets, unlicked cubs,

openmouthed and impenetrable shellfish; but our lessons supple and render pliant the intractable stiffness

CH. V. The son of the Genoese is acknowledged by a legal instrument, and named Don Henry Philip de Guzman. Santillane establishes his household, and arranges the course of his studies. 371

of their component parts, and bring them insensibly into shape: in short, we communicate to them a graceful

motion, a polite address, the carriage of good company, and the outward marks of elevated rank.

I could not but give way to such cogent arguments in favour of the dancingmaster's occupation, and engaged

him about Dun Henry's person without haggling as to terms, since those specified were only at the rate

I HAD not yet half arranged Don Henry's household, when Scipio returned from Mexico. He brought with

him three thousand ducats in cash, and merchandise to double the amount. I wish you joy, said I; the

foundation of your fortune is laid; and if you prefer a snug berth at Madrid to the risk of going back, you have

only to tell me so. There is no question about that, said the son of Coselina: a genteel situation at home is far

After relating the birth and adventures of the little adopted Guzman, and my own appointment as tutor, I

offered him the situation of upper servant to this babe of chance: Scipio, who could have devised nothing

better for himself, readily accepted the office, and within the small space of three or four days got the length

I had taken it for granted that that the verbgrinders and concordmanufacturers to whom I had given the

plant of this Genoese bastard would lose stock and block, under the idea that he was of an intractable and

profitless age; but my forebodings were completely reversed. He not only comprehended, but easily retained

the lessons of his masters, and they were very well satisfied with him. I was in an enormous hurry to greet the

ears of my lord duke with this intelligence, and he received, it with abundant joy. Santillane, exclaimed he

with delight, you give me new life by the assurance of Don Henry's capacity and application: it runs in the

blood of the Guzmans; and I am the more confirmed in his being unquestionably my own, because I am just

as fond of him as if Madame d' Olivarez herself had lain in of the brat in due form under this very roof. The

voice of nature, you perceive, will make itself heard. I thought it unnecessary to give his lordship any opinion

on that subject; but with a delicate deference to his credulity, left him to enjoy his fancied paternity in peace,

Though all the Guzmans held this clod of newly turned up nobility in utter scorn, they were politic enough to

smooth over the corrugations of their contempt; nay, some of them even affected to languish for his good

opinion: the ambassadors and principal nobility then at Madrid waited on him, with all the ceremony

appertaining to the rank of a legitimate son. The minister, intoxicated with the fumes of incense offered to his

idol, began to build a temple worthy of the worship. The cross of Alcantara was the foundation, with a

commandery of ten thousand crowns. The next step was to a high office in the royal household, and the

completion of the whole was matrimony. Wishing to connect him with a family of the first rank, he picked

out Donna Johanna de Velasco, daughter to the Duke of Castile, and had influence enough to accomplish the

Some days before the nuptial ceremony, his lordship put some papers into my hand, saying: Here, Gil Blas, is

a patent of nobility which I have procured as the reward of your services. My lord, answered I, in much

astonishment, your excellency knows very well that I am the son of an usher and a duenna: it would be

caricaturing the peerage to confer it on me; and besides, of all the boons in his majesty's power to bestow, it

is that which I deserve and desire the least. Your birth, replied the minister, is a slight objection. You have

CH. VI. Scipio's return from New Spain. Gil Blas places him about Don Henry's person. That young nobleman's course of study. His career of honour, and his father's matrimonial speculation on his behalf. A patent of nobility conferred on Gil Blas against his will. 372

been employed on affairs of state under the Duke of Lerma's administration and under mine: besides, added

he with a smile, have you not rendered some things to Caesar, which Caesar is bound, on the honour of a

prince, to render back in another shape? To deal candidly, Santillane, you will make just as good a lord as the

best of them; nay, more than that, your high office about my son is incompatible with plebeian rank, and

therefore have I procured you to be created. Since your excellency will have it so, replied I, there is no more

to be said. So, saying no more, I put my newblown honours in my pocket, and walked off.

Now can I make any Joan a lady! said I to myself when I had got into the street: but it was not the

handywork of my parents that made me a gentle man. I may add a foot of honour to my name whenever I

please; and if any of my acquaintance should snuff or snigger when they call me Don, I may suck my teeth,

lean upon my elbow, and draw out my credentials of heraldry. But let us see what they contain; and how the

corporeal particles, which have accrued during my artificial contact with the court, are distinguished by

genealogical metaphysics from the native clay of my original extraction. The instrument ran thus in

substance: That the king in acknowledgment of my zeal in more than one instance for his service and the

good of the state, had been graciously pleased to confer this mark of distinction on me. I may safely say that

the recollection of the act for which I was promoted effectually kept down my pride. Neither did the

bashfulness of low birth ever forsake me; so that nobility to me was like a hair shirt to a penitent: I

determined therefore to lock up the evidences of my shame in a private drawer, instead of blazoning them to

THE poet of the Asturias, as the reader, if he thought of him, may have remarked, was very negligent in his

intercourse with me. It was not to be expected, that my employments would leave me time to go and look

after him. I had not seen him since the critical discussion touching the Iphigenia of Euripides, when chance

threw me across him, as he came out of a printinghouse. I accosted him, saying: So! so! Master Nunez, you

have got among the printers: this looks as if we were threatened with some new production.

You may indeed prepare yourselves for such an event, answered he: I have a pamphlet just ready for

publication which is likely to make some noise in the literary world. There can be no question about its merit,

replied I: but I cannot conceive why you waste your time in writing pamphlets: it should seem as if such

squibs and rockets were scarcely worth the powder expended in their manufacture. It is very true, rejoined

Fabricio: and I am well aware that none but the most vulgar gazers are caught by such holiday fireworks:

however, this single one has escaped me, and I must own that it is a child of necessity. Hunger, as you know,

What! exclaimed I, is it the author of the "Count of Saldagna" who holds this language? A man with an

annuity of two thousand crowns? Gently, my friend, interrupted Nunez: I am no longer a pensioned poet. The

affairs of the treasurer Don Bertrand are all at sixes and sevens: he has been at the gaming table, and played

with the public money: an extent has issued, and my rentcharge is gone posthaste to the devil. That is a sad

affair, said I: but may not matters come round again in that quarter? No chance of it, answered he: Signor

Gomez Del Ribero, in plight as destitute as that of his poor bard, is sunk for ever; nor can he, as they say, by

In that case, my good friend, replied I, we must look out for some post which may make you amends for the

loss of your annuity. I will ease your con science on that score, said he: though you should offer me the

wealth of the Indies as a salary in one of your offices, I would reject the boon: clerkships are no object to a

partner in the firm of the Muses; a literary berth, or absolute starvation for your humble servant! If you must

have it plump, I was born to live and die a poet, and the man whose destiny is hanging, will never be

CH. VII. An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio. Their last conversation together, and a word to the wise from Nunez. 373

But do not suppose, continued he, that we are altogether forlorn and destitute: besides that we accommodate

the requisites of independence to our finances, we do not look far beyond our noses in calculating the avenge

of our fortunes. It is insinuated that we often dine with the most abstemious orders of the religious; but our

sanctity in this particular is too credulously imputed. There is not one of my brother wits, without excepting

the calculators of almanacs, who has not a plate laid for him at some substantial table: for my own part, I

have the run of two good houses. To the master of one I have dedicated a romance; and he is the first

commissioner of taxes who was ever associated with the Muses: the other is a rich tradesman in Madrid,

whose lust is to get wits about him; he is not nice in his choice, and this town furnishes abundance to those

Then I no longer feel for you, said I to the poet of the Asturias, since you are satisfied in your condition. But

be that as it may, I assure you once more, that you have a friend in Gil Blas, however you may slight him: if

you want my purse, come and take it: it will not fail you at a pinch; and you must not stand between me and

By that burst of sentiment, exclaimed Nunez, I know and thank my friend Santillane: in return, let me give

you a salutary caution. While my lord duke is in his meridian, and you are all in all with him, reap, bind, and

gather is your harvest: when the sun sets, the gleaners are sent home. I asked Fabricio whether his suspicions

were surely founded; and he returned me this answer. My information comes from an old knight of Calatrava,

who pokes his nose into secrets of all sorts; his authority passes current at Madrid, much as that of the

Pythian newsmongers did through Greece; and thus his oracle was pronounced in my hearing: My lord duke

has a host of enemies in battlearray against him; he reckons too securely upon his influence with the king;

for his majesty, as the report goes, begins to take in hostile representations with patience. I thanked Nunez for

his friendly warning, but without much faith in his prediction: my master's authority seemed rooted in the

court, like the tempestscoffing firmness of an oak in the native soil of the forest.

Cu. VIII. Gil Blas finds that Fabricio's hint was not without foundation. The king's journey to Saragossa.

THE poet of the Asturias was no bad politician. There was a court plot against the duke, with the queen at the

bottom; but their plans were too deeply laid to bubble at the surface. During the space of a whole year, my

The revolt of the Catalans, with France at their back, and the ill success of the war for their suppression,

excited the murmurs of the people, and whetted their tongues against government. A council was held in the

royal presence, and the Marquis de Grana, the emperor's ambassador, was specially requested to assist. The

subject in debate was whether the king should remain in Castile, or go and take the command of his troops in

Arragon. The minister spoke first, and gave it as his opinion that his majesty should not quit the seat of

government All the members supported his arguments, with the exception of the Marquis de Grana, whose

whole heart was with the house of Austria, and the sentiments of his soul on the tip of his tongue, after the

homely honesty of his nation. He argued so forcibly against the minister, that the king embraced his opinion

from conviction, though contrary to the vote of council, and fixed the day when he would set out for the

This was the first time that ever the sovereign had differed from his favourite, and the latter considered it as

an inexpiable affront. Just as the minister was withdrawing to his closet, there to bite upon the bridle, he

espied me, called me in; and told me with much discomposure what had passed in debate: Yes, Santillane,

observed he, the king, who for the last twenty years has spoken only through my mouth, and seen with my

eyes, is now to be wheedled over by Grana; and that on the score of zeal for the house of Austria, as if that

CH. VII. An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio. Their last conversation together, and a word to the wise from Nunez. 374

Hence it is easy to perceive, continued the minister, that there is a strong party against me, with the queen at

the head. Heaven forbid it, said I. Has not the queen for upwards of twelve years been accustomed to your

paramount authority, and have you not taught the king the knack of not consulting her? The desire of making

a campaign may for once have enlisted his majesty on the side of the Marquis de Grana. Say rather that the

king, argued my lord duke, will be surrounded by his principal officers when in camp; and then the

disaffected will find their opportunity for poisoning him against my administration. But they overreach

themselves; for I shall completely insulate the prince from all their approaches; and so he did, in a manner

The day of the king's departure being arrived, the monarch, leaving the queen regent, proceeded for

Saragossa by way of Aranjuez; a delightful residence, where he whiled away three weeks. Cuen�a was the

next stage, where the minister detained him still longer by a succession of amusements. A hunting party was

contrived at Molina in Arragon, and hence there was no choice of road but to Saragossa. The army was near

at hand, and the king was preparing to review it: but his keeper sickened him of the project, by making him

believe that he would be taken by the French, who were in force in the neighbourhood; so that he was cowed

by a groundless apprehension, and consented to be a prisoner in his own court. The minister, from an

affectionate regard to his safety, secluded him from all approach: so that the principal nobility, who had

equipped themselves at enormous charges to be about his person, could not even procure an occasional

audience. Philip, weary of bad lodgings and worse recreation at Saragossa, and perhaps feeling himself

scarcely his own master, soon returned to Madrid. Thus ended the royal campaign, and the care of

maintaining the honour of the Spanish colours was left to the Marquis de los Velez, commanderinchief.

A FEW days after the king's return, an alarming report prevailed at Madrid, that the Portuguese, considering

the Catalan revolt as an opportunity offered them by fortune for throwing off the Spanish yoke, had taken

arms, and chosen the Duke of Braganza for their king, with a full determination of supporting him on the

throne. In this they conceived that they did not reckon without their host; because Spain was then embroiled

in Germany, Italy, Flanders, and Catalonia. They could not in fact have hit upon a crisis more favourable for

It was a strange circumstance, that while both court and city were struck with consternation at the news, my

lord duke attempted to joke with the king, and make the Duke of Braganza his butt; Philip, however, far from

falling in with this ill timed pleasantry, assumed a serious air, of ill omen to the minister, who felt his seat to

totter under him. The queen was now his declared enemy, and openly accused him of having caused the

revolt of Portugal by his misconduct. The nobility in general, and especially those who had been at

Saragossa, when they saw a cloud gathering about the minister, joined the queen's party: but the decisive

blow was the return of the duchess dowager of Mantua from her government of Portugal to Madrid; for she

proved clearly to the king's conviction that the counsels of his own cabinet produced the revolution. *[see

His majesty, deeply impressed with what he had heard, was now completely recovered from every symptom

of partiality towards his favourite. The minister, finding that his enemies were in possession of the royal ear,

wrote for permission to resign his employments, and retire from court, since all the political mischances of

the time were ascribed to his personal delinquency. He expected a letter like this to produce a wonderful

effect, reckoning as be did upon the prince's private friendship, which could scarcely brook a separation: but

his majesty's answer undeceived him, by laconically complying with his ostensible wish to withdraw.

Such a sentence of banishment in the king's own handwriting came like a thunderstorm in harvest; but

though destruction to his longcherished hopes, he affected the serene look of constancy, and asked me what

I would do in his circumstances. I would drive before the wind, said I; renounce the ungrateful court, and

pass the remainder of my days in peace on my own estate. You counsel wisely, replied my master, and I shall

set out for Loeches, there to finish my career, after one more interview with his majesty: for I could wish just

to convince him that I have done what man can do to support the heavy load of state upon my shoulders, and

that it was not within the compass of possibility to prevent the unfortunate events which are imputed to me as

a crime. It were equally reasonable to charge the pilot with the wrecking fury of the storm, and make him

answerable for the uncontrolled power of the elements. Thus did the minister inwardly flatter himself that he

could set things to rights again, and once more fix firm the seat which was shaking under him; but he could

not procure an audience, and was even commanded to resign his key of private admission into his majesty's

This last requisition convinced him that there was no hope; and he now made up his mind in earnest for

retirement. He looked over his papers, and had the prudence to burn a good number, he then selected a small

household for his retreat, and publicly announced his departure for the next day. Apprehending insult from

the mob, if the time and manner of his setting out were public, he escaped early in the morning through the

kitchens out at the back door, got in to a shabby, hired carriage, with his confessor and me, and reached in

safety the road leading to Loeches, a village on his own estate, where his countess had founded a magnificent

*Note: At length his sovereign frowns the train of state Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate.

MADAME D'OLIVAREZ stayed behind her husband some few days, with the intention of trying what her

tears and entreaties might do towards his recall; but in vain did she prostrate herself before their majesties:

the king paid not the least attention to her pleadings and remonstrances, though artfully adapted for effect;

and the queen, who hated her mortally, took a savage pleasure in her tears. The minister's lady, however, was

not easily discouraged: she stooped so low as to solicit their good offices from the ladies of the bedchamber;

but the fruit of all this meanness was only the sad conviction that it excited more contempt than pity.

Heartbroken at having degraded herself by supplications so humiliating, and yet so unavailing, she departed

to her husband, and mourned with him the loss of a situation, which under a reign like that of Philip the

The accounts her ladyship brought from Madrid were wormwood to the duke. Your enemies, said she,

sobbing, with the Duke of Medina Coeli at their head, are loud in the king's praises for your removal; and the

people triumph in your disgrace with an insolent joy, as if the cloud of adversity were to be dispelled by the

breath which dissolved your administration. Madam, said my master, follow my example; suppress your

discontent: we must drive before the storm, when we cannot weather it. I did think, indeed, that my favour

would only be eclipsed with the lamp of life: a common illusion of ministers and favourites, who forget that

they breathe but at the good pleasure of their sovereign. Was not the Duke of Lerma as much mistaken as

myself, though fondly relying on his purple, as a pledge for the lasting tenure of his authority?

Thus did my lord duke preach patience to the partner of his cares, while his own bosom heaved under the

direst pressure of anxiety. The frequent dispatches from Don Henry, who was staying about the court to pick

up information, kept him continually on the fret. Scipio was the messenger; for he was still about the person

of that young nobleman, though I had relinquished my post on his marriage. Sometimes we heard of changes

in the inferior departments of office, solely for the purpose of wreaking vengeance on his creatures, and

filling up the vacancies with his enemies. Then Don Lewis de Haro was represented as advancing in favour,

and likely to be made prime minister. But the most mortifying circumstance of all was the change in the

CH. X. A difficult, but successful, weaning from the world. The minister's employments in his retreat. 376

viceroyalty of Naples, which was taken from his friend, the Duke de Medina de Las Torres, and bestowed on

the High Admiral of Castile, who was his bitterest enemy. For this there was no other motive but the pleasure

For the first three months, his lordship gave himself up in his solitude a prey to disappointment and regret:

but his confessor, a holy and pious Dominican, supporting his religious zeal with manly eloquence,

succeeded in pouring the balm of consolation into his soul. By continually representing to him, with apostolic

energy, that his eternal salvation was now the only object worth his care, he weaned him gradually from the

uses of this world. His excellency was no longer panting for news from Madrid, but learning a new and

important lesson, how to die. Madame d'Olivarez too, making a virtue of necessity, sought refuge for herself

in the maternal guardianship of her convent, where Providence had reared up, for her edification in faith and

good works, a sisterhood of holy maidens, whose spiritual discourses fed her soul, as if with manna in the

wilderness. My master's peace within his own bosom advanced, as he withdrew more backward from

sublunary things. The employment of his day was thus laid out: almost the whole morning was devoted to

religious duties, till dinnertime; and after dinner, for about two hours, he played at different games with me

and some of his confidential domestics: be then generally retired alone into his closet till sunset, when he

walked round his garden, or rode out into the neighbourhood either with his confessor or me.

One day when I was alone with him, and was particularly struck with his apparent selfcomplacency, I took

the liberty of congratulating his lordship on his complete reconciliation to retirement. Use, however late

acquired, is second nature, answered he: for though I have all my life been accustomed to the bustle of

business, I assure you that I become every day more and more attached to this calm and peaceful mode of

HIS excellency sometimes amused himself with gardening, by way of variety. One day as I was watching his

progress, he said jokingly: You see, Santillane, a fallen minister can turn gardener at last. Nature will prevail,

my lord, answered I. You plant and water something useful at Loeches, while Dionysius of Syracuse whipped

schoolboys at Corinth. My master was not displeased either with the comparison or the compliment

We were all delighted at the castle to see our protector, rising above the cloud of adversity, take pleasure in

so novel a mode of life: but we soon perceived an alarming change. He became gloomy, thoughtful, and

melancholy. Our parties at play were all given up, and no efforts could succeed to divert his mind. From

dinner time till evening he never left his closet. We thought the dreams of vanished greatness had returned

to break his rest; and in this opinion the reverend Dominican gave the rein to his eloquence; but it could not

outstrip the course of that hypochondriac malady, which triumphed over all opposition.

It seemed to me there was some deeper cause, which it behoved a sincere friend to fathom. Taking advantage

of our being alone together, My lord, said I, in a tone of mingled respect and affection, whence is it that you

are no longer so cheerful as heretofore? Has your philosophy lost ground? or has the world recovered its

allurements? Surely you would not plunge again into that gulf, where your virtue must inevitably be

shipwrecked! No, heaven be praised! replied the minister: my part at court has long faded from my memory,

and its trappings from my eyes. Indeed! why then, resumed I, since you have strength enough to banish false

regrets, are you so weak as to indulge a melancholy which alarms us all? What is the matter with you, my

dear master? continued I, falling at his knees: some secret sorrow preys upon you: can you hide it from

Santillane, whose zeal, discretion, and fidelity you have so often experienced? Why am I so unhappy as to

CH. XI. A change in his lordship for the worse. The marvellous cause, and melancholy consequences, of his dejection. 377

You still possess it, said his lordship: but I must own, it is reluctantly that I shall reveal the subject of my

distress: yet the importunities of such a friend are irresistible. To no one else could I impart so singular a

confidence. Yes, I am the prey of a morbid melancholy which eats inwardly into my vitals: a spectre haunts

me every moment, arrayed in the most terrific form of preternatural horror. In vain have I argued with myself

that it is a vision of the brain, an unreal mockery: its continual presentments blast my sight, and unseat my

reason. Though my understanding teaches me, that in looking on this spectre I stare at vacancy, my spirits are

too weak to derive comfort from the conviction. Thus much have you extorted from me: now judge whether

With equal grief and astonishment did I listen to the strange confession, which implied a total derangement of

the nervous system. This, my lord, said I, must proceed from injudicious abstinence. So I thought at first,

answered he; and to try the experiment, I have been eating more than usual for some days past; but it is all to

no purpose, the phantom takes his stand as usual. It will vanish, said I, if your excellency will only divert

your mind by your accustomed relaxations with your household. Company and gentle occupation are the best

In a short time after this conversation, his lordship became seriously indisposed, and sent for two notaries

from Madrid, to make his will. Three capital physicians followed in their track, who had the reputation of

curing their patients now and then. As soon as it was noised about the castle that these last undertakers were

arrived, the case was given up for lost; weeping and gnashing of teeth took place universally, and the family

mourning was ordered. They brought with them their usual understrappers, an apothecary and a surgeon*.

The notaries were suffered to earn their fee first, after which death's notaries prepared to take a bond of the

patient. They practised in the school of Sangrado, and from their very first consultation, ordered bleeding so

frequently and freely, that in six days they brought his lordship to the point of death, and on the seventh

After the minister's decease, a lively and sincere sorrow reigned in the castle of Loeches. The whole

household wept bitterly. Far from deriving consolation from the certainty of being remembered in his will,

there was not a dependent who would not willingly have saved his life by the sacrifice of the legacy. As for

me, whom he most delighted in, attached to him as I was from disinterested friendship, my grief was more

*Translator's Note: . . . . Behind him sneaks Another mortal, not unlike himself, Of jargon full, with terms

obscure o'ercharged, Apothecary call'd, whose foetid hands With power mechanic, and with charms arcane,

THE minister, according to his last injunctions, was buried without pomp and without procession in the

convent, with a dirge of our lamentations. After the funeral, Madame d' Olivarez called us together to hear

the will read, with which the household had good reason to be satisfied. Every one had a legacy proportioned

to his claim, and none less than two thousand crowns: mine was the largest, amounting to ten thousand

pistoles, as a mark of his singular regard. The hospitals were not forgotten, and provision was made for an

Madame d'Olivarez sent all the household to Madrid to receive their legacies from Don Raymond Caporis,

who had orders to pay them; but I could not be of the party, in consequence of a violent fever from distress of

mind, which confined me to the castle for more than a week. During that time, the reverend Dominican paid

me all possible attention. He had conceived a friendship for me, which was not confined to my worldly

CH. XII. The proceedings at the Castle of Loeches after his lordship's death, and the course which Santillane adopted. 378

interests, and was anxious to know how I meant to dispose of myself on my recovery. I answered that I had

not yet made up my mind upon the subject: there were moments when my feelings strongly prompted

towards a religious vow. Precious moments! exclaimed the Dominican, you will do well to profit by them. I

advise you as a friend to retire to our convent at Madrid, for example; there to become a pious benefactor by

the free gift of your whole fortune, and to die in the livery of Saint Dominic. Many very questionable

In the actual disposition of my mind, this advice was not unpalatable; and I promised to reflect upon it. But

on consulting Scipio, who came to see me immediately after the monk, he treated the very notion as the

phantom of a distempered brain. For shame! said he; does not your estate at Lirias offer a more eligible

seclusion? If you were delighted with it formerly, the charm will be increased tenfold, now that the lapse of

years has moderated your sense of pleasure, and softened down your taste to the simple beauties of nature.

It was no difficult matter to operate a change in my inclinations. My friend, said I, you carry it decidedly

against the advocate of Saint Dominic. We will go back to Lirias as soon as I am well enough to travel. This

happened shortly; for as the fever subsided, I soon felt myself sufficiently strong to put my design in

execution. We went first to Madrid. The sight of that city gave me far other sensations than heretofore. As I

knew that almost its whole population held in horror the memory of a minister, of whom I cherished the most

affectionate remembrance, I could not feel at my ease within its precincts. My stay was therefore limited to

five or six days, while Scipio was making the necessary arrangements for our rustication. In the meantime I

waited on Caporis, and received my legacy in ready money. I likewise made my arrangements with the

receivers for the regular remittance of my pensions, and settled all my affairs in due order.

The evening before our departure, I asked the son of Coselina whether he had received his farewell from Don

Henry. Yes, answered he, we took leave of each other this morning with mutual civility; he went so far as to

express his regret that I should quit him; but however well satisfied he might be with me, I am by no means

so with him. Mutual content is like a river, which must have its banks on either side. Besides, Don Henry

makes but a pitiful figure at court now; he has fallen into utter contempt; people point at him with their finger

in the streets, and call him a Genoese bastard. Judge, then, for yourself, whether it is consistent with my

We left Madrid one morning at sunrise, and went for Cuen�a. The following was the order of our equipment;

we two in a chaise and pair, three mules, laden with baggage and money, led by two grooms and two stout

footmen, well armed, in the rear; the grooms wore sabres, and the postilion had a pair of pistols in his

holsters. As we were seven men in all, and six of us determined fellows, I took the road gaily, without

trembling for my legacy. In the villages through which we passed our mules chimed their bells merrily, and

the peasants ran to their doors to see us pass, supposing it to be at least the parade of some nobleman going to

WE were a fortnight on our journey to Lirias, having no occasion to make rapid stages. The sight of my own

domain brought melancholy thoughts into my mind, with the image of my lost Antonia; but better topics of

reflection came to my aid, with a full purpose to look at things on the brighter side, and the lapse of

As soon as I entered the castle, Beatrice and her daughter greeted me most cordially, while the family scene

was interesting in the extreme. When their mutual transports were over, I looked earnestly at my

CH. XIII. The return of Gil Blas to his seat. His joy at finding his goddaughter Seraphina marriageable; and his own second venture in the lottery of love. 379

goddaughter, saying: Can this be the Seraphina whom I left in her cradle? how tall and pretty! we must

make a good match for her. What! my dear godfather, cried my little girl with an enchanting blush, you

have but just seen me, and do you want to get rid of me at once! No, my lovely child, replied I, we hope not

There is one ready to your hands, said Beatrice. Seraphina made a conquest one day at mass. Her suitor has

declared his passion, and asked my consent. I told him that his acceptance depended on her father and her

What is the character of this village lordling? said Scipio. Is he not, like his fellows, the little tyrant of the

soil, and insolent to those who have no pedigree to boast? The furthest from it in the world, answered

Beatrice; the young man is gentle in his temper and polished in his manners; handsome withal, and somewhat

under thirty. You paint him in flattering colours, said I to Beatrice; what is his name? Don Juan de Jutella,

replied Scipio's wife: it is not long since be came to his inheritance: he lives on his own estate, about a mile

off, with a younger sister, of whom he takes care. I once knew something of his family, observed I; it is one

of the best in Valencia. I care less for lineage, cried Scipio, than for the qualities of the heart and mind; this

Don Juan will exactly suit us, if he is a good sort of man. He is belied else, said Seraphina, with a blushing

interest in our conversation; the inhabitants of Lirias, who know him well, say all the good of him you can

conceive. I smiled at this; and her father, not less quicksighted, saw plainly that her heart had a share in the

The gentleman soon heard of our arrival, and paid his respects to us within two days. His address was

pleasing and manly, so as to prepossess us in his favour. He affected merely to welcome us home as a

neighbour. Our reception was such as not to discourage the repetition of his visit; but not a word of

Seraphina! When he was gone, Beatrice asked us how we liked him. We could have no objection to make,

The next day, Scipio and I returned the visit. We took a guide, and luckily; for otherwise it might have

puzzled us to find the place. It was not till our actual arrival that it was visible; for the mansion was situated

at the foot of a mountain, in the middle of a wood, whose lofty trees hid it from our view. There was an

antique and ruinous appearance about it, which spoke more for the descent than the wealth of its proprietor.

On our entrance, however, the elegance of the interior arrangement made amends for the dilapidated grandeur

Don Juan received us in a handsome room, where he introduced his sister Dorothea, a lady between nineteen

and twenty years of age. She was a good deal tricked out, as if she had primed and loaded herself for

conquest, in expectation of our visit. Thus presenting all her charms in full force, she did by me much as

Antonia had done before; but I managed my raptures so discreetly, that even Scipio had no suspicion. Our

conversation turned, as on the preceding day, on the mutual pleasure of good neighbourhood. Still he did not

open on the subject of Seraphina, nor did we attempt to draw him out. During our interview, I often cast a

side glance at Dorothea, though with all the reserve of delicate apprehension; whenever our eyes met, the

citadel of my heart was ready to surrender. To describe the object of my love justly, as well as feelingly, her

beauty was not of the most perfect kind: her skin was of a dazzling whiteness, and her lips united the colour

with the fragrance of the rose; but her features were not so regular and wellproportioned as might have been

In short, I left the mansion of Jutella a different man from what I was on entering it: so that, returning to

Lirias with my whole soul absorbed in Dorothea, I saw and spoke only of her. How is this, master! said

Scipio with a look of astonishment: you seem to be very much taken with Don Juan's sister! Can you be in

love with her? Yes, my friend, answered I: to my shame be it spoken. Since the death of Antonia, how many

lovely females have passed in review before me with indifference: and must my passions be irresistibly

CH. XIII. The return of Gil Blas to his seat. His joy at finding his goddaughter Seraphina marriageable; and his own second venture in the lottery of love. 380

kindled at this time of life? Indeed, sir, replied the son of Coselina, you may bless your stars, instead of

squabbling with yourself: you are not so old as to make your sacrifice at the shrine of love a byword; and

time has not yet ploughed such furrows on your brow, as to render hopeless the desire of pleasing. When you

see Don Juan next, ask him boldly for his sister: he cannot refuse her to you; and besides, if his views in her

settlement are ambitious, how can he do better? You have a patent of nobility in your pocket, and upon that

your posterity may ride easy; after five generations, when pedigree herself shall be lost in the confusion of

her materials, it may exercise the diligence of learned inquiry, to trace the family of the Santillanes to the

beginning of its archives, and consecrate the fame of its founder by the indistinctness of his story.

By this discourse, Scipio encouraged me to declare myself, without considering bow he exposed me to the

danger of a refusal. My own resolution was taken with fear and trembling. Though I carried my years well,

and might have sunk at least ten, it did not seem unlikely that a young beauty might turn up her nose at the

disparity. I determined, however, to bolt the question the first time I saw her brother, who was not without his

He returned my call the next morning, just as I had done dressing. Signor de Santillane, said he, I wish to

speak with you on some serious business. I took him into my closet, where entering on the subject at once, I

imagine, continued he, that you are not unacquainted with the purpose of my visit: I love Seraphina; you are

all in all with her father; I must request you therefore to intercede and procure for me the accomplishment of

my heart's desire: then shall I have to thank you for the prime bliss of my existence. Signor Don Juan,

answered I, as you come to the point at once, you can have no objection to my following your example: My

good offices are fully at your service, and I shall hope for yours with your sister in return.

Don Juan was agreeably surprised. Can it be possible, exclaimed he, that Dorothea should have made a

conquest of your heart since yesterday? It is even so, said I, and it would make me the happiest of men, if the

proposal should meet with your joint approbation. You may rely on that, replied he; though with some

pretensions to family pride, yours is not an alliance to be despised. You flatter me highly, rejoined I; that you

are not mealymouthed about receiving a commoner into your pedigree, is a mark of good sense; but even if

nobility had been a necessary ingredient in your sister's requisites for a husband, we should not have

quarrelled on that account. I have worked out twenty years in the trammels of office; and the king, as a

reward of my long labours, has granted me a patent of nobility. This high minded gentleman read my

credentials over with extreme satisfaction, and returning them, told me that Dorothea was mine. And

Thus were the two marriages agreed on between us. The consent of the intended brides was all that remained;

for we neither of us presumed to control the inclinations of our wards. My friend therefore carried home my

proposal to his sister, and I called Scipio, Beatrice, and my goddaughter together, for the purpose of laying

open a similar project. Beatrice voted loudly for immediate acceptance, and Seraphina silently. The father did

not say much against it; but boggled a little at the fortune he must give to a gentleman whose seat required

such immediate and extensive repairs. I stopped Scipio's mouth by telling him that was my concern, and that I

In the evening, Don Juan came again. Your business is going swimmingly, said I; pray heaven mine may

promise as fairly. Better it cannot, answered he; my influence was quite unnecessary to prevail with

Dorothea; your person had made its impression, and your manners pleased her. You were afraid she might

not like you; while she, with more reason, having nothing to offer you but her heart and hand . . . . What

would she offer more? interrupted I, out of my wits with joy. Since the lovely Dorothea can think of me

without repugnance, I ask no more: my fortune is ample, and the possession of her is the only dowry I should

Don Juan and myself, highly delighted at having brought our views to bear so soon, were for hastening our

nuptials, and cutting off all superfluous ceremonies. I closeted the gentleman with Seraphina's parents; the

settlemeuts were soon agreed on, and he took his leave, promising to return next day with Dorothea. My

eager desire of appearing agreeable in that lady's eyes, occasioned me to spend three hours at least in

adjusting my dress, and communicating the air of a lover to my person; but I could not do it so much to my

mind as in my younger days. The preparations for courtship are a pleasure to a young man, but a serious

business and hazardous speculation to one who is beginning to be oldish. And yet it turned out better than my

hopes or deserts; for Don Juan's sister received me so graciously, as to put me in good humour with myself. I

was charmed with the turn of her mind; and foreboded that with discreet management and much deference, I

might really get her to like me as well as anybody else. Full of this sweet hope I sent for the lawyers to draw

up the two contracts, and for the clergyman of Paterna, to bring us better acquainted with our mistresses.

Thus did I light the torch of Hymen for the second time, and it did not burn blue with the brimstone of

repentance. Dorothea, like a virtuous wife, made a pleasure of her duty; in gratitude for the pains I took to

anticipate all her wishes, she soon loved me as well as if I had been younger. Don Juan and my goddaughter

were most enthusiastic in their mutual ardour; and what was most unprecedented of all, the two

sistersinlaw loved one another sincerely. Don Juan was a man in whom all good qualities met: my esteem

for him increased daily, and he did not repay it with ingratitude. In short, we were a happy and united family:

we could scarcely bear the interval of separation between evening and morning. Our time was divided

between Lirias and Jutella: his excellency's pistoles made the old battlements to raise their heads again, and

For these three years, reader, I have led a life of unmixed bliss in this beloved society. To perfect my

satisfaction, heaven has deigned to send me two smiling babes, whose education will be the amusement of

my declining years; and if ever husband might venture to hazard so bold an hypothesis, I devoutly believe

13. CH. II -- Gil Blas' alarm on his road to Pegnaflor; his adventures on his arrival in that town; and the character of the men with whom he supped., page = 23

14. CH. III. -- The muleteer's temptation on the road; its consequences, and the situation of Gil Blas between Scylla and Charybdis., page = 26

15. CH. IV. -- Description of the subterraneous dwelling and its contents., page = 27

16. CH. V. -- The arrival of the banditti in the subterraneous retreat, with an account of their pleasant conversation., page = 28

18. CH. VII. -- Gil Blas, not being able to do what he likes, does what he can., page = 33

19. CH. VIII. -- Gil Blas goes out with the gang, and performs an exploit on the highway., page = 34

21. CH. X. -- The lady's treatment from the robbers. The event of the great design, conceived by Gil Blas., page = 36

24. CH. XIII. -- The lucky means by which Gil Blas escaped from prison, and his travels afterwards., page = 43

26. CH. XV. -- Gil Blas dresses himself to more advantage, and receives a second present from the lady. His equipage on setting out from Burgos., page = 46

27. CH. XVI. -- Showing that prosperity will slip through a man's fingers., page = 48

28. CH. XVII. -- The measures Gil Blas took after the adventure of the ready-furnished lodging., page = 50

30. CH. I. -- Fabricio introduces Gil Blas to the Licentiate S�dillo, and procures him a reception. The domestic economy of that clergyman. Picture of his housekeeper., page = 54

31. CH. II. -- The canon's illness; his treatment; the consequence; the legacy to Gil Blas., page = 56

32. CH. III. -- Gil Blas enters into Doctor Sangrado's service, and becomes a famous practitioner., page = 58

33. CH. IV. -- Gil Blas goes on practising physic with equal success and ability. Adventure of the recovered ring., page = 61

34. CH. V. -- Sequel of the foregoing adventure. Gil Blas retires from practice, and from the neighbourhood of Valladolid., page = 65

35. CH. VI. -- His route from Valladolid, with a description of his fellow-traveller., page = 67

37. CH. VIII. -- The meeting of Gil Blas and his companion with a man soaking crusts of bread at a spring, and the particulars of their conversation., page = 78

38. CH. IX. -- The meeting of Diego with his family; their circumstances in life; great rejoicings on the occasion; the parting scene between him and Gil Blas., page = 80

40. CH. I. -- The arrival of Gil Blas at Madrid. His first place there., page = 82

41. CH. II. -- The astonishment of Gil Blas at meeting Captain Rolando in Madrid, and that robber's curious narrative., page = 85

42. CH. III -- Gil Blas is dismissed by Don Bernard de Castil Blazo, and enters into the service of a beau., page = 88

43. CH. IV. -- Gil Blas gets into company with his fellows; they shew him a ready road to the reputation of wit, and impose on him a singular oath., page = 91

44. CH. V. -- Gil Blas becomes the darling of the fair sex, and makes an interesting acquaintance., page = 94

47. CH. VIII. -- An accident, in consequence of which Gil Blas was obliged to look out for another place., page = 102

48. CH. IX. -- A new service, after the death of Don Matthias de Silva., page = 105

51. CH. XII. -- Gil Blas acquires a relish for the theatre, and takes a full swing of its pleasures, but soon becomes disgusted., page = 110

53. CH. I. -- Gil Blas not being able to reconcile himself to the morals of the actresses, quits Arsenia, and gets into a more reputable service., page = 111

55. CH. III. -- A great change at Don Vincent's. Aurora's strange resolution., page = 116

57. CH. V. -- The behaviour of Aurora de Guzman on her arrival at Salamanca., page = 131

58. CH. VI. -- Aurora's devices to secure Don Lewis Pacheco's affections., page = 136

59. CH. VII -- Gil Blas leaves his place and goes into the service of Don Gonzales Pacheco., page = 140

60. CH. VIII. -- The Marchioness of Chaves: her character, and that of her company., page = 145

61. CH. IX. -- An incident that parted Gil Blas and the Marchioness of Chaves. The subsequent destination of the former., page = 147

63. CH. XI. -- The old hermit turns out an extraordinary genius, and Gil Blas finds himself among his former acquaintance., page = 156

66. CH. II -- Don Raphael's consultation with his company, and their adventures as they were preparing to leave the wood., page = 191

68. CH. I. -- The fate of Gil Blas and his Companions after they took leave of the Count de Polan. One of Ambrose's notable contrivances set off by the manner of its execution., page = 193

69. CH. II -- The determination of Don Alphonso and Gil Blas after this adventure., page = 198

70. CH III. -- An unfortunate occurrence, which terminated to the high delight of Don Alphonso. Gil Blas meets with an adventure which places him all at once in a very superior situation., page = 200

72. CH. I. -- The tender attachment between Gil Blas and Dame Lorenza Sephora., page = 201

73. CH. II. -- What happened to Gil Blas after his retreat from the castle of Leyva; shewing that those who are crossed in love are not always the most miserable of mankind., page = 205

74. CH. III. -- Gil Blas becomes the Archbishop's favourite, and the channel of all his favours., page = 208

75. CH. IV. -- The Archbishop is afflicted with a stroke of apoplexy. How Gil Blas gets into a dilemma, and how he gets out., page = 211

76. CH. V. -- The course which Gil Blas took after the archbishop had given him his dismissal. His accidental meeting with the licentiate who was so deeply in his debt, and a picture of gratitude in the person of a parson., page = 213

77. CH. VI. -- Gil Blas goes to the play at Grenada. His surprise at seeing one of the actresses, and what happened thereupon., page = 215

79. CH. VIII. -- The reception of Gil Blas among the players at Grenada; and another old acquaintance picked up in the green- room., page = 225

80. CH. IX. -- An extraordinary companion at supper; and an account of their conversation., page = 226

81. CH. X. -- The Marquis de Marialva gives a commission to Gil Blas. That faithful secretary acquits himself of it as shall be related., page = 228

83. CH. XII. -- Gil Blas takes lodgings in a ready-furnished house. He gets acquainted with Captain Chinchilla. That officer's character and business at Madrid., page = 231

84. CH. XIII. -- Gil Blas comes across his dear friend Fabricio at court. Great ecstacy on both sides. They adjourn together, and compare notes; but their conversation is too curious to be anticipated., page = 235

85. CH. XIV. -- Fabricio finds a situation for Gil Blas in the establishment of Count Galiano, a Sicilian nobleman., page = 239

86. CH. XV. -- The employment of Gil Blas in Don Galiano's household., page = 241

87. CH. XVI. -- An accident happens to the Count de Galiano's monkey; his lordship's affliction on that occasion. The illness of Gil Blas, and its consequences., page = 244

89. CH. I. -- Gil Blas scrapes an acquaintance of some value, and finds wherewithal to make him amends for the Count de Galiano's ingratitude. Don Valerio de Luna's story., page = 247

90. CH. II. -- Gil Blas is introduced to the Duke of Lerma, who admits him among the number of his secretaries, and requires a specimen of his talents, with which he is well satisfied., page = 250

91. CH. III. -- All is not gold that glitters. Some uneasiness resulting from the discovery of that principle in philosophy, and its practical application to existing circumstances., page = 252

92. CH. IV. -- Gil Blas becomes a favourite with the Duke of Lerma, and the confidant of an important secret., page = 254

93. CH. V. -- The joys, the honours, and the miseries of a court life, in the person of Gil Blas., page = 255

94. CH. VI. -- Gil Blas gives the Duke of Lerma a hint of his wretched condition. That minister deals with him accordingly., page = 257

95. CH. VII. -- A good use made of the fifteen hundred ducats. A first introduction to the trade of office, and an account of the profit accruing therefrom., page = 259

97. CH. IX. -- Gil Blas makes a large fortune in a short time, and behaves like other wealthy upstarts., page = 264

98. CH. X. -- The morals of Gil Blas become at court much as if they had never been at all. A commission from the Count de Lemos, which, like most court commissions, implies an intrigue., page = 267

99. CH. XI. -- The Prince of Spain's secret visit, and presents to Catalina., page = 271

100. CH. XII. -- Catalina's real condition a worry and alarm to Gil Blas. His precautions for his own ease and quiet., page = 273

101. CH. XIII. -- Gil Blas goes on personating the great man. He hears news of his family: a touch of nature on the occasion. A grand quarrel with Fabricio., page = 274

103. CH. I. -- Scipio's scheme of marriage for Gil Blas. The match, a rich goldsmith's daughter. Circumstances connected with this speculation., page = 276

104. CH. II. -- In the progress of political vacancies, Gil Blas recollects that there is such a man in the world as Don Alphonso de Leyva; and renders him a service from motives of vanity., page = 278

105. CH. III. -- Preparations for the marriage of Gil Blas. A spoke in the wheel of Hymen., page = 279

106. CH. IV. -- The treatment of Gil Blas in the tower of Segovia. The cause of his imprisonment., page = 280

107. CH. V. -- His reflections before he went to sleep that night, and the noise that waked him., page = 282

108. CH. VI -- History of Don Gaston de Cogollos and Donna Helena de Galisteo., page = 283

109. CH. VII. -- Scipio finds Gil Blas out in the tower of Segovia, and brings him a budget of news., page = 290

110. CH. VIII. -- Scipio's first journey to Madrid: its object and success. Gil Blas falls sick. The consequence of his illness., page = 292

111. CH. IX. -- Scipio's second journey to Madrid. Gil Blas is set at liberty on certain conditions. Their departure from the tower of Segovia, and conversation on their journey., page = 293

112. CH. X. -- Their doings at Madrid. The rencounter of Gil Blas in the street, and its consequences., page = 295

114. CH. I. -- Gil Blas sets out for the Asturias; and passes through Valladolid, where he goes to see his old master, Doctor Sangrado. By accident, he comes across Signor Manuel Ordonnez, governor of the hospital., page = 296

115. CH. II. -- Gil Blas continues his journey, and arrives in safety at Oviedo. The condition of his family. His father's death, and its consequences., page = 301

116. CH. III. -- Gil Blas sets out for Valencia, and arrives at Lirias; description of his seat; the particulars of his reception, and the characters of the inhabitants he found there., page = 305

117. CH. IV. -- A journey to Valencia, and a visit to the lords of Leyva. The conversation of the gentlemen, and Seraphina's demeanour., page = 307

118. CH. V. -- Gil Blas goes to the play, and sees a new tragedy. The success of the piece. The public taste at Valencia., page = 310

119. CH. VI. -- Gil Blas, walking about the streets of Valencia, meets with a man of sanctity, whose pious face he has seen somewhere else. What sort of man this man of sanctity turns out to be., page = 311

120. CH. VII. -- Gil Blas returns to his seat at Lirias. Scipio's agreeable intelligence, and a reform in the domestic arrangements., page = 315

122. CH. IX. -- Nuptials of Gil Blas with the fair Antonia; the style and manner of the ceremony; the persons assisting thereat; and the festivities ensuing there upon., page = 319

123. CH. X. -- The honey-moon (a very dull time for the reader as a third person) enlivened by the commencement of Scipio's story., page = 321

127. CH. I. -- Containing the subject of the greatest joy that Gil Blas ever felt, followed up, as our greatest pleasures too generally are, by the most melancholy event of his life. Great changes at court, producing, among other important revolutions, the return of Santillane., page = 346

128. CH. 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., page = 348

129. CH. III. -- The project of retirement is prevented, and Joseph Navarro brought upon the stage again, by an act of signal service., page = 351

130. CH. IV. -- Gil Blas ingratiates himself with the Count of Olivarez., page = 352

131. CH. V. -- The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro, and his first employment in the service of the Count d'Olivarez., page = 353

132. CH. 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., page = 356

133. CH. VII. -- Gil Blas meets with his friend Fabricio once more; the accident, place, and circumstances described; with the particulars of their conversation together., page = 358

134. CH. VIII. -- Gil Blas gets forward progressively in his master's affections. Scipio's return to Madrid, and account of his journey., page = 359

135. CH. IX.. -- How my lord duke married his only daughter, and to whom: with the bitter consequences of that marriage., page = 361

136. CH. 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., page = 362

137. CH. XI. -- Santillane gives Scipio a situation: the latter sets out for New Spain., page = 364

138. CH. XII. -- Don Alphonso de Leyva comes to Madrid; the motive of his journey a severe affliction to Gil Blas, and a cause of rejoicing subsequent thereon., page = 365

139. CH. XIII. -- Gil Blas meets Don Gaston de Cogollos and Don Andrew de Tordesillas at the drawing-room, and adjourns with them to a more convenient place. The story of Don Gaston and Donna Helena de Galisteo concluded. Santillane renders some service to Tordesillas., page = 367

140. CH. XIV. -- Santillane's visit to the poet Nunez, the company and conversation., page = 370

142. CH. I. -- Gil Blas sent to Toledo by the minister. The purpose of his journey and its success., page = 371

143. CH. II. -- Santillane makes his report to the minister, who commissions him to send for Lucretia. The first appearance of that actress before the court., page = 374

144. CH. III. -- Lucretia's popularity; her appearance before the king; his passion, and its consequences., page = 375

146. CH. V. -- The son of the Genoese is acknowledged by a legal instrument, and named Don Henry Philip de Guzman. Santillane establishes his household, and arranges the course of his studies., page = 378

147. CH. VI. -- Scipio's return from New Spain. Gil Blas places him about Don Henry's person. That young nobleman's course of study. His career of honour, and his father's matrimonial speculation on his behalf. A patent of nobility conferred on Gil Blas against his will., page = 379

148. CH. VII. -- An accidental meeting between Gil Blas and Fabricio. Their last conversation together, and a word to the wise from Nunez., page = 380

149. CH. IX. -- The revolution of Portugal, and disgrace of the prime minister., page = 382

150. CH. X. -- A difficult, but successful, weaning from the world. The minister's employments in his retreat., page = 383

151. CH. XI. -- A change in his lordship for the worse. The marvellous cause, and melancholy consequences, of his dejection., page = 384

152. CH. XII. -- The proceedings at the Castle of Loeches after his lordship's death, and the course which Santillane adopted., page = 385

153. CH. XIII. -- The return of Gil Blas to his seat. His joy at finding his god-daughter Seraphina marriageable; and his own second venture in the lottery of love., page = 386

154. CH. XIV. -- A double marriage, and the conclusion of the history., page = 388