Gil Blas by Alain-René Lesage (best romance books of all time TXT) 📕

“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 Polán, 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 showing himself. Such, father, was the cause of my absence and distraction. I beseech you to assist me with your counsels.”

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

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 endeavors. You will be terribly out of luck to kill the brother of the next young lady who may chance to succeed this only possible object of your affection.”

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 well stuffed wallet slung across his shoulders. He was on his return, with the charitable contributions of all the good folks in the town of Cuenca; 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 Antony,” 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 humor of our fate; Let us change our dialect, Señor 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 Cuenca, 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 slough, to bask in the sunshine of youth and vigor.”

To suit the action to the word, he threw off the encumbrance 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 honors of a beard, and our anchorite was at once transformed to a brawny ruffian of eight-and-twenty or thirty. Brother Antony, 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 worm-eaten trunk a sorry rag of a cassock, with which he invested his person. But what words can express my surprise, when Señor Don Raphael presented himself to my view, like a phoenix from the ashes of the old bead-counter! To complete the trick of the pantomime, brother Antony 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, Señor Gil Blas,” said Don Raphael, with a brazen-faced good humor: “you have fallen among old friends when you least expected it. It 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 labor 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