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

dowager who walked before us, and by favor 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 pocket book. Get up, my princess, dress your royal person with all possible despatch. I will be your squire, and lodge you in durance vile, if you have no objection.”

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, “Señor 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 ready-furnished lodging. “O! 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 accessary 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 delighted to hear.”

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, endeavored 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 Núñez, “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 honor 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.”

“O! 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, 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 jewelry 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 to 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, but when we are not paid for our lies.”

V

Sequel of the foregoing adventure⁠—Gil Blas retires from practice, and from the neighborhood of Valladolid.

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. “Gentlemen,” said Fabricio, when we were in the