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GIL BLAS
By ALAIN RENE LE SAGE G IL BLAS, the only son of an old soldier, had reached the age of seventeen when his uncle, the village priest, who had taught him a little Latin, Greek, and logic, sent him off with forty ducats and a bad mule to study divinity at Salamanca. His adventures began immediately. At his first stop he was cheated out of his mule; as he was eating his dinner a wily flatterer invited himself to be his guest and showed his gratitude by the good advice never to be taken in by praise. He had to pay an exorbitant reckoning and went on his way, "giving to as many devils as there are saints in the calendar, the parasite, the landlord, and the inn." He soon fell into the hands of bandits, who made him join them on their raids. In one of them they captured Dona Mencia, wife of the Marques de la Guardia, and brought her to their cavern. Gil Blas pretended to be ill and escaped with the grateful lady. He was arrested as one of the bandits, and as he was wearing clothes recognized by one of their victims, and his pockets were full of money, he was thrown into jail. After several weeks' imprisonment his innocence was established, but the jailer had robbed him of everything. At Burgos he sought out Dona Mencia, who presented him with a hundred ducats and a costly ring. He bought a pretentious outfit for twice its value and decided that instead of becoming a licentiate, "he would make his way in this world rather than think of the next." A second gift of a thousand ducats from Dona Mencia confirmed him in his resolve. He bought two mules and, hiring a servant, set forth for Madrid. His servant conspired with several rogues to make a fool of him. One of them, Camilla, pretending to be related to Dona Mencia, invited him to hired lodgings as if to her own home, and there he was feasted and flattered. As a mark of special favor she exchanged her ruby ring, which she declared was worth three hundred pistoles, for his, and procured him an invitation to a great country-seat for hunting and fishing. But when he arose in the morning his servant, his two mules, his portmanteau, and Dona Mencia's pretended relatives had vanished. The ruby ring was a cheat. Fortunately he fell in with a boyhood friend, Fabricio, at Valladolid and by his advice became a servant to a clergyman, the Canon Sedillo, at whose house he led an easy life. The canon soon died, leaving him his worthless library and the good fortune of be-coming assistant to his physician, the famous Doctor Sangrado. Under him Gil Blas became particularly proficient in his method of practice, which consisted of nothing but blood-letting and "drenchings of water." He declared that he made as many widows and orphans as the siege of Troy; one of his victims was the betrothed of a giant Biscayan, who threatened him with dire vengeance, and he fled to Madrid, where he became valet to a mysterious and wealthy Don Bernardo, his only duty being to keep the wardrobe brushed and to tend door. But he happened to fall in with Rolando, captain of the brigands; and Don Bernardo, seeing him in such suspicious company, dismissed him with six ducats. From one reason or another he kept changing employers; he served now a dissipated hidalgo, then an intriguing actress, then an aged libertine whose daughter, in gratitude for aiding her to win back her recreant lover, Don Luis Pacheco, gave him a hundred pis-toles, and, on her father's death, got him a place with still another aged roue, Don Gonzales, whose dressing operations, when he arose at noon, reminded him of the resurrection of Lazarus. Here again he acted as intermediary in a love-affair, but when he told his infatuated employer that he was being duped he was turned off, though given a recommendation to the Marquesa de Chaves, reputed the cleverest woman in Madrid, because she was as solemn as an owl and rarely spoke. Her salon, called "The Fashionable Institution for Literature, Taste, and Science," was the resort for the wits and notables of Madrid. Here again he had easy work, but, getting into trouble about a girl, was compelled to leave the city. On his way to Toledo he rescued a young nobleman, named Don Alfonso, from arrest. They became friends, and after Don Alfonso reached his home he and his father became Gil Bias's patrons, placing him as secretary to their relative, the Archbishop of Granada, who was inordinately vain and as broad as he was long. Gil Blas praised his sermons and was regarded as a young man of excellent judgment until after the prelate's mind was affected by apoplexy and his homilies became discordant ravings. Gil Blas obeyed the archbishop's command to tell him if he fell short in his preaching and was ignominiously packed off. Reduced to extremities once more, he posed as the brother to a disreputable actress and thus secured the position of secretary to a Portuguese grandee, the Marques de Marialva. The trick was discovered. He re-turned to Madrid, and after many amusing and not always creditable adventures was appointed under-secretary to the Duke of Lerma, prime minister to the king. His duties may be gaged by his comment, "One makes a merit of any dirty work in the service of the great." His experiences with the upper and the lower world, with actors, poets, libertines, physicians, bandits, adventurers, and hidal- gos and their servants, had sharpened his wits, and his native ability and smattering of education gave him growing influence. He was courted, flattered, and bribed; his conceit and avarice became colossal. He declared that "a court had all the soporific virtues of Lethe in the case of poor relations" and confessed that "every trace of his former gay and generous temper had disappeared." Pride came before a fall. Having been employed to procure a questionable mistress for the heir-apparent, he was arrested by the king's orders and thrown into the dungeon of Segovia. The prince intervened, but he was exiled from the two Castiles. All his property was seized and his mercenary engagement to a wealthy jeweler's daughter was broken. Then his friend Don Alfonso, whom he had got appointed as governor of Valencia, presented him with a small estate near that city. On his way thither he stopped at his birth-place and found his uncle a mental wreck and his mother worn out in caring for his dying father. He gave his father a pompous funeral, and settled an annuity on his mother, but the townspeople were so indignant with him for his neglect of his family that they threatened to mob him. Glad to escape with his life, he reached Valencia, where he was received at his new home by seven or eight servants provided by Don Alfonso. He got rid of most of them and lived frugally, marrying Antonia, daughter of his farmer, Don Basilio. But his idyllic happiness ended with the death of his wife in childbirth. Soon afterward the crown prince came to the throne and offered him a place of high responsibility. Gil Blas, who had learned wisdom, replied that "all he wanted was a good situation where there was no inducement to violate his conscience, and where the favors of his prince were not likely to be bartered for filthy lucre." He was made confidant to the prime minister, who intrusted him with the education of his illegitimate son and heir. This brought him a title. After some years when the duke lost the king's favor, Gil Blas followed him into retirement, and on his death was remembered with a bequest of ten thousand pistoles. He returned to his beautiful estate, made a second marriage, and lived, happy and respected, training his children wisely and confiding to his memoirs all his errors, crimes, joys, and sorrows, together with his opinions of literature, society, and the stage. His narrative is interspersed with long and fascinating stories related by various characters whom he had met; these and his own adventures furnish a vivid picture of the romantic Spain of the seventeenth century. Gil Blas is one of the wisest and most amusing of romances, and though it is not free from the coarseness permitted at that time, vice is not depicted attractively and its teaching is generally moral. |