From what I have now told you respecting my grandmother, you will perceive that she was scarcely to be matched in love intrigues; nevertheless, as she was a very extravagant woman, and never so much as thought of laying by the profit of her favours, she must inevitably have been reduced to indigence in her old age, had not her daughter’s beauty began to shine forth in proportion as her own faded and declined. The good old lady was very impatient until the little Marcella was sufficiently grown and well-shaped to think of settling her; and finding that at twelve years old she was very forward for her age, she no longer delayed endeavouring to provide for her. A merchant newly arrived from Peru, and richer than a jew, enjoyed her first favours, through the assistance of four thousand ducats, which he presented to my grandmother; and finding a successor as generous as the merchant, for every day in the week, she lived in plenty, by that means, for the remaining part of her life. A daughter in my stead, would, certainly, then, have been better for my mother, or even had she had us both, my sister would have been a harbour for us in our present wreck, and we should soon have made a good fortune at Seville, where purchasers are always sure to be found for every sort of commodity. It is the common retreat of persons who have only their wits to live on: it serves as the mother to orphans, and a cloak to sinners. At all events, if that city were not sufficient, we could have proceeded to Madrid, where such a jewel is always saleable. If, at first, we were not able to dispose of it for a permanency, there we could, at least, put it in pledge to so good an account, as always to live in plenty. If I am not more awkward than another man, I think that having a pretty sister, I could have managed to obtain some good preferment; but Heaven ordained it otherwise, and made me an only son for my sins. I had just entered my fourteenth year, and as I could not look without pain on the misery with which we were threatened, I resolved to leave my mother and my country, and to seek my fortune elsewhere. My wish to travel was for the purpose of seeing and knowing a little of the world, and I always had a particular desire to visit my father’s relations at Genoa. So that not being able any longer to defer the execution of my design, I left Seville on a beautiful day, with my purse almost as destitute of money as my head was crammed with idle fancies and chimeras. CHAP. V. _Guzman sets out from Seville. His first adventure at an Inn._