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

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 biographer, and set your fame far above all the parallels of Plutarch.’

“Just as Moralez was finishing this learned allusion, Jerome de Moyadas came in. ‘You shall be my son-in-law 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?’

“ ‘Honored 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 Vélez 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 Mérida. 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 gentleman. 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 a 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 son-in-law; 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 conscience of the most scrupulous casuist.’

“ ‘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 honor 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