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

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 honor of valet-de-chambre, 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 cumin, 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 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 dripping pan 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 below stairs. I did the honors 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 license 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 the driver to have taken shelter with me.

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. Núñez 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 comfortably.”

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 honorably 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 Lerma.”

Núñez felt so strange a sensation at these last words, that he was tongue-tied 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 a universal genius! To borrow an expression from the tennis-court, 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 Núñez!” 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 Núñez, “you are to sup with Señor Don Fabricio, who writes verses of impenetrable sublimity, and such prose as would not know itself in the glass.”

Unluckily I was talking to gentry who would have had more fellow-feeling with an orangutan 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