The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Volume 1 (of 3)Le Sage, Alain René
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The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Volume 1 (of 3)
Le Sage, Alain René
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Blas, Gil (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
I had been with Don Vincent above a month, when it struck me that his
daughter was very particular in her notice of me above all the
servants in the family. Whenever her eyes happened accidently to
meet mine, they seemed to be suffused with a certain partial
complacency, which did not enter into her silent communications with
the vulgar. Had it not been for my haunts among the coxcombs of the
theatrical tribe and their hangers-on, it would never have entered
into my head that Aurora should throw away a thought on me: but my
brain had been a little turned among those gentry, from whose
libertine suspicions of ladies of the noblest birth are not always
held sacred. If, said I, those chronicles of the age are to be
believed, fancy and high blood lead women of quality a dance, in
which they sometimes join hands with unequal partners: how do I know
but my young mistress may caper to a tune of my piping? But no; it
cannot be so, neither. This is not one of your Messalinas, who,
derogating from the loftiness of ancestry, unworthily let down their
regards to the dust, and sully their pure honor without a blush: but
rather one of those virtuously apprehensive, yet tender-hearted
girls, who encircle their softness within the insurmountable pale of
delicacy; yet think it no tampering with chastity, to inspire and
cherish a sentimental flame, interesting to the heart without being
dangerous to the morals.
Such were my ideas of my mistress, without knowing exactly whether
they were right or wrong. And yet, when we met, she was continually
caught with a smile of satisfaction on her countenance. Without
passing for a fop, a man might give in to such flattering
appearances; and a philosophical apathy was not to be expected from
me. I conceived Aurora to have been deeply smitten with my
irresistible attractions, and looked on myself henceforth in the
light of a favored attendant, whose servitude was to be sweetened by
the balmy infusion of love. To appear in some measure less unworthy
of the blessings, which propitious fortune had kept in store for me,
I began to take better care of my person than I had done heretofore.
I laid out my slender stock of money in linen, pomatums, and
essences. The first thing in the morning was to prank up and perfume
myself, so as not to be in an undress in case of being sent for into
the presence of my mistress. With these attentions to personal
elegance and other dexterous strokes in the art of pleasing, I
flattered myself that the moment of my bliss was not very distant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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