Gil Blas Alain-René Lesage (novel books to read TXT) 📖

cousin to Doña Mencía de Mosquera, whom you have so greatly befriended. It was but this morning I received a letter from her. She writes me word that having learned your intention of going to Madrid, she wished me to receive you hospitably on your journey, if you went this way. For these two hours have I been parading the town. From inn to inn have I gone to inform myself what strangers were in the house; and I gathered from the landlord’s description, that you were most likely to have been my cousin’s deliverer. Since then I have found you out, you shall know by experience my gratitude to the friends of my family, and especially to my dear cousin’s hero. You will take up your abode, if you please, at my house. Your accommodations will be better.”

I wished to excuse myself; and told the lady that I could not be so troublesome: but her importunities were more than a match for my modesty. A carriage was waiting at the door of the inn to convey us. She saw my portmanteau taken care of with her own eyes, because, as she justly observed, there were a great many light-fingered gentry about Valladolid⁠—to be sure there were a great many light-fingered gentry about Valladolid, as she justly observed! In short, I got into the carriage with her and the old usher, and suffered myself to be carried off bodily from the inn, to the great annoyance of the landlord, who saw himself thus weaned from all the little perquisites he had reckoned on from my abode under his roof.

Our carriage, having rolled on some distance, stopped. We alighted at the door of a handsome house, and went upstairs into a well furnished apartment, illuminated by twenty or thirty wax candles. Several servants were in waiting, of whom the lady inquired whether Don Raphael was come. They answered, “No.”

She then addressed herself to me: “Señor Gil Blas, I am waiting for my brother’s return from a country seat of ours, about two leagues distant. What an agreeable surprise will it be to him to find a man under his roof to whom our family is so much indebted!” At the very moment she had finished this pretty speech, we heard a noise, and were informed at the same time that it was occasioned by the arrival of Don Raphael. This spark soon made his appearance. He was a young man of portly figure and genteel manners. “I am in ecstasy to see you back again, brother,” said the lady; “you will assist me in doing the honors to Señor Gil Blas of Santillane. We can never do enough to show our sense of his kindness to our kinswoman, Doña Mencía. Here, read this letter I have just received.” Don Raphael opened the envelope, and read aloud as follows:⁠—

“My dear Camilla: Señor Gil Blas of Santillane, the saviour of my honor and my life, has just set out for court. He will of course pass through Valladolid. I conjure you by our family connection, and still more by our indissoluble friendship, to give him a hospitable reception, and to detain him for some time as your guest. I flatter myself that you will so far oblige me, and that my deliverer will receive every kind of polite attention from yourself, and my cousin Don Raphael.

Your affectionate cousin,
Doña Mencía.

Burgos.”

“What!” cried Don Raphael, casting his eyes again over the letter, “is it to this gentleman my kinswoman owes her honor and her life? Then Heaven be praised for this happy meeting.” With this sort of language, he advanced towards me; and squeezing me tightly in his arms: “What joy to me is it,” added he, “to have the honor of seeing Señor Gil Blas of Santillane? My cousin the marchioness had no need to press the hospitality. Had she only told us simply that you were passing through Valladolid, that would have been enough. My sister Camilla and I shall be at no loss how to conduct ourselves towards a young gentleman, who has conferred an obligation, not to be repaid, on her of all our family most tenderly beloved by us.”

I made the best answer I could to these speeches, which were followed by many others of the same kind, and interlarded with a thousand bows and scrapes. “But Lord bless me, he has his boots on!” The servants were ordered in, to take them off.

We next went into another room, where the cloth was laid. Down we sat at table, the brother, sister, and myself. They paid me a hundred compliments during supper. Not a word escaped me, but they magnified it into an admirable hit! It was impossible not to observe the assiduity with which they both helped me out of every dish. Don Raphael often pledged me to Doña Mencía’s health. I could not refuse the challenge; and it looked a little as if Camilla, who was a very good companion, ogled at me with no questionable meaning. I even thought I could perceive that she watched her opportunity, as if she was afraid of being detected by her brother. An oracle could not have convinced me more firmly that the lady was caught; and I looked forward to a little delicate amusement from the discovery, during the short time I was to stay at Valladolid. That hope was my tempter to comply with the request they made me, of condescending to pass a few days with them. They thanked me kindly for indulging them with my company; and Camilla’s restrained, but visible transport, confirmed me in the opinion that I was not altogether disagreeable in her eyes.

Don Raphael, finding I had made up my mind to be his guest for a few days, proposed to take me to his country house. The description of it was magnificent, and the round of amusements he meditated for me was not to be described. “At one time,”