The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane

Chapter IX. He supped that evening with an extraordinary man: an account of what happened between them.

310 The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane chapter ix. He supped that evening with an extraordinary man: an account of what happened between them. Iobserved in the hall a kind of old monk cloathed in coarse grey cloath, who was at supper all alone in a corner. Sitting down out of curiosity just opposite to him, I saluted him very civilly, and he shewed himself no less polite. My pittance being brought, I began to dispatch it with a good deal of appetite; and while I ate in silence, I frequently looked at this person, whose eyes I always found fixed on mine. Fatigued with his stubborn perseverance in looking at me, I addressed him in these words: “Father, have we ever seen one another before? You observe me, as if I was not altogether unknown to you.” He answered with great gravity, “My reason for fixing my eyes upon you, is to admire the prodigious variety of adventures which are marked in the features of your face.” “I see, (said I, with an air of raillery) that your reverence deals in metoposcopy.”1 “I may boast of possessing that art, (replied the monk) and of having made presages, which have been verified by the event. I am also skilled in chiromancy,2 and will venture to say, that my oracles are infallible, when I have compared the inspection of the hand with that of the face.” Although this old man had all the appearance of a wise person, I thought him so foolish, that I could not help laughing in his face. Instead of being offended, he smiled at my impoliteness, and continued speaking in these words, after having cast his eyes round the hall, to be assured that nobody listened; “I am not surprised to see you so prejudiced against two sciences, which are looked upon as frivolous in this age. The long and painful study which they demand, discourages all the learned men, who renounce and decry them, out of despair of acquiring them. For my own part, I am not discouraged by the obscurity in which they are shrouded, no more than by the difficulties which incessantly occur in the search of chymical secrets, and in the wonderful art of transmuting metals into gold. “But I don’t consider, (added he, recollecting himself) that I speak to a young cavalier , to whom my discourse must in effect appear quite chimerical. A sample of my skill will dispose you much better than all I can say, to judge more favourably of my art.” With these words, he took out of his pocket a phial full of red liquor; and then said: “Here is an elixir which I composed this morning of the juice of certain plants distilled in an alembick;3 for I have employed almost all my life, like Democritus,4 in finding out the properties of minerals and simples.5 You shall see its virtue put to the proof. The wine which we now drink to supper, though it is execrable, shall become excellent.” So saying, he put into my bottle two drops of his elixir, which rendered my wine more delicious than the best that is drank in Spain. The marvellous strikes the imagination; and when once that is gained, the judgment is no longer used. Charmed with such a fine secret, and persuaded that he must Volume Three: VII.9 311 be more than the devil who could find it out, I cried in a transport of admiration, “O! father, pray pardon me, if I took you at first for an old fool; I now do justice to your capacity, and need no more than I have seen, to be assured, that you could, if you pleased, convert in an instant a bar of iron into an ingot of gold. How happy should I be, could I possess such an admirable science.” “Heaven preserve you from such an acquisition, (said the old man, interrupting me with a profound sigh.) You don’t know, my son, what a fatal secret you wish for. Instead of envying, rather pity me, for having bestowed so much pains to make myself unhappy. I live in continual disquiet. I am afraid of being discovered, and that my labours will be rewarded by perpetual imprisonment . In this apprehension I lead a wandering life, disguised sometimes like a priest or monk, and sometimes like a peasant or cavalier. Is it then an advantage to know how to...