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

surfeit of gallantry; so that, my passion oozing out with my blood, I made the best of my way homewards, where I rendered night hideous by my howling, and knocked all the family up. My master probed my wound, and played the true surgeon on it; he pronounced the consequences to be uncertain. He did all he could to make them certain; but flesh will heal in spite of the faculty; and there was not a scar remaining in three weeks. During all this time, I heard not a word from Mergelina. The probability is that Dame Melancia, to wean her impure thoughts from me, engaged her in some better sport. However, I did not concern myself about the matter; but left Madrid, to continue my tour of Spain, as soon as I found myself perfectly recovered.” VIII

The meeting of Gil Blas and his companion with a man soaking crusts of bread at a spring, and the particulars of their conversation.

Señor Diego de la Fuenta related some other adventures which had since happened to him; but they were so little worthy of preservation, that I shall pass them by in silence. Yet there was no getting rid of the recital, which was tedious enough: it lasted as far as Ponte de Duero. We halted in that town the remainder of the day. Our commons at the inn consisted of a vegetable soup, and a roast hare, whose genus and species we took especial pains to verify. At daybreak on the following morning we resumed our journey, after having replenished our flask with some very tolerable wine, and our wallet with some pieces of bread, and half the hare we had left for supper. When we had gone about two leagues, we waxed hungry; and, espying, at about two hundred yards from the high road, some spreading trees which threw an agreeable shade over the plain, we made up to the spot, and rested on our arms. There we met with a man from seven to eight and twenty, who was dipping crusts of bread into a spring. He had a long sword lying by him on the grass, with a soldier’s knapsack, of which he had eased his shoulders. We thought his air and person better than his attire. We accosted him with civility, and he returned our salutation. He then offered us his crusts, and asked, with a smile, if we would take potluck with him. We answered in the affirmative, provided he had no objection to our clubbing our own breakfast, by way of making the meal more substantial. He agreed to it with the utmost readiness, and we immediately produced our provisions, which were not unacceptable to the stranger. “What is all this, gentlemen,” exclaimed he, in a transport of joy; “here is ammunition for an army! By your forecast, you must be commissaries or quartermasters. I do not travel with so much contrivance, for my part; but depend a good deal on the chances of the road. At the same time, though appearances may be against me, I can pay, without vanity, that I sometimes make a very brilliant figure in the world. Would you believe that princely honors are commonly bestowed on me, and that I have guards in attendance?”

“I comprehend you,” said Diego; “you mean to tell us, you are a player.”

“You guess right,” replied the other; “I have been an actor for these fifteen years at least. From my very infancy, I was sent on the boards in children’s parts.”

“To deal freely,” rejoined the barber, shaking his head, “I do not believe a word of it. I know the players; those gentry do not travel on foot, like you, nor do they mess with St. Anthony. I doubt whether you are anything better than a candle-snuffer.”

“You may,” quoth the son of Thespis, “think of me as you please; but my parts, for all that, are in the first line: I play the lovers.”

“If that be the case,” said my companion, “I wish you much joy, and am delighted that Señor Gil Blas and myself have the honor of breakfasting with so eminent a character.”

We then began to pick up our crumbs, and to gnaw the precious relics of the hare, bestowing such hearty smacks upon the bottle, as to empty it very shortly. We were all three so deeply engaged in the great affair of eating, that we said very little till we had finished, when we resumed our conversation. “I wonder,” said the barber to the player, “that you should be so much out at elbows. For a theatrical hero, you have but a needy exterior! I beg pardon if I speak rather freely.”

“Rather freely!” exclaimed the actor; “ah! by my troth, you are not yet acquainted with Melchior Zapata. Heaven be praised! I have no mind to see things in a wrong light. You do me a pleasure by speaking so confidently, for I love to unbosom myself without reserve. I honestly own I am not rich. Here,” pursued he, showing us his doublet lined with playbills, “this is the common stuff which serves me for linings; and if you are curious to see my wardrobe, you shall not be disappointed.” At the same time he took out of his knapsack a dress, laced with tarnished frippery; a shabby headdress for a hero, with an old plume of feathers; silk stockings full of holes; and red morocco shoes, a great deal the worse for wear. “You see,” said he again, “that I am very little better than a beggar.”

“That is astonishing,” replied Diego; “then you have neither wife nor daughter?”

“I have a very handsome young wife,” rejoined Zapata, “and yet I might just as well be without her. Look with awe on the lowering aspect of my horoscope. I married a personable actress, in the hope that she would not let me die of hunger; and, to my cost, she is cursed with incorruptible chastity. Who the devil