Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper by Francisco de Quevedo (e book reading free TXT) 📕

for them, I made the wench acquainted with my affections, which she received with much joy, returning a thousand loving expressions, and so we parted for that time. The next night, the more to confirm them in the conceit of my wealth, I shut myself up in my chamber, which was parted from theirs only by a thin wall of lath and plaster, and taking out fifty crowns, counted them over so often that they reckoned six thousand. This contrivance of making them believe I was rich, succeeded as well as I could wish, for their whole study was to please and make much of me. The Portuguese, who lodged in the house with me, was called Don Vasco de Meneses, and was knight of the famous order of Christ in Portugal. He wore a black cloak, a pair of boots, a little band, and large whiskers, and was passionately in love with Donna Berenguela de Rebolledo, for that was our mistress’s name. When he courted her, he would make long speeches, sighing like a nun at a sermon in Lent, and singing very scurvily. There was continual bickering between him and the Catalonian, who was the most wretched, miserable creature that ever God put life into; for, like a tertian ague, he fed but once in three days, and the bread was so hard that it had broke several of his teeth. His way of making love was looking big and bullying, though at the same time he had no more heart than a hen, and cackled as much. These two perceiving I had got the start of them in the amorous adventure, made it their whole business to rail at me. The Portuguese said I was a shabby, lousy scoundrel; the Catalonian gave out that I was a pitiful coward. I knew all they said, and sometimes heard it, but did not think fit to make any reply. In short, the wench gave me a full hearing, and received my love letters, which I began, according to the laudable custom, with “Pardon my presumption,” “The power of your beauty,” etc. Then I went on with the terms of passion and flames, and feigned myself her slave, sealing it with a heart struck through with a dart. After all this ceremony we came to plain “thee” and “thou”; and to clench the notion of my quality, already conceived, I went abroad, hired a mule, and muffling myself up in my cloak, and changing my voice, asked for myself, inquiring whether Don Ramiro de Guzman, lord of Valcerado and Vellorete, lived there. The wench made answer, “Here is a gentleman of that name, of a low stature,” and described me. I replied he was the man, and desired her to tell him that Diego de Solarzano, his steward, was going to receive his rents, and called as he went by to kiss his hand. Having left this message I went away, and came home awhile after. They received me with the greatest joy imaginable, complaining that I would not let them know I was lord of Valcerado and Vellorete, and delivered the message they had for me. This made the wench mad to secure such a rich husband, and so she contrived that I should talk with her at one o’clock in the morning, getting out of a gallery upon the tiles her window looked over.

The devil, who is always contriving of mischief, so ordered it, that at night, being eager to improve that opportunity, I went up into the gallery, and getting out of it upon the tiles, where I was to entertain my lady, my feet slipped, and I came down upon a neighbour’s house, who was a notary, with such force, that I broke all the tiles, and left the print of them in my sides. The dreadful noise waked half the house, and fancying there had been thieves, for that sort of people are always apprehensive of them, they came out upon the top of the house. I would have hid myself behind a chimney, which made the suspicion the greater; for the notary, with the assistance of two servants and a brother, beat me like a stock-fish, and bound me in the presence of my mistress, without any regard to what I could say for myself. She laughed heartily, because having told her before that I could play abundance of odd pranks by the help of the magic art, she concluded the fall had been only a trick to make sport, and therefore lay calling to me to come up, for I had done enough. This and the beating made me roar out unmercifully; and the best of it was, that she believed it was all sham, and laughed immoderately. The notary began to draw up a process, and because he heard some keys rattle in my pocket, he not only said, but writ it down, that they were picklocks, though they were showed him, and it was impossible to beat it out of him. I told him I was Don Ramiro de Guzman, at which he laughed heartily. Seeing myself in a wretched condition, unmercifully beaten before my mistress, and like to be hurried away to gaol with a scandalous name, though innocent, I knew not what course to take. I fell upon my knees before the notary, and begged of him for the love of God, but all that would not prevail with him to quit me. Hitherto we were still upon the tiles, for these people have never the more conscience for being the nearer heaven; they then took me down below, through a skylight that was over a kitchen.

VI

In which the same subject is pursued, with other strange incidents.

I had not one wink of sleep all that night, thinking on my misfortune, which was not my falling upon the tiles, but into the cruel and merciless clutches of the notary; and when I called to