Languages & literature > Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane > Volume 4

THE ADVENTURES
“ By St Antonio de Padua! this is the fon of honeft
“ Ufher Bias of Santillane.” “ Yes, truly, (faid his
“ wife), it is he indeed !. he is very little altered: -
“ it is the fame little brilk Gil Bias, who had always
more fpirit in his heart than beef on his bones.
“ I think 1 fee him (till coming to this houfe, with
“ his bottle, for wine to his uncle’s fupper.”
“ Madam, (faid I), you have a very happy me-
“ mory: but pray tell me news of my family; my
“ father and mother are doubtlefs in no. very agree-
“ able htuation.” “ That is but too true, (replied
“ the landlady) : how bad foever you may think
“ their condition is, you cannot conceive them more
“ difhefied than they are. Gil Perez, honeft man*
“ has loll the ufe.of one half of his body by the pal-
“ fy ; and in all appearance cannot laft long : your
“ father, who has lived of late with the canon, has
“ got a deflu&ion in his bread, or rather, is at this
*' moment in the agonies of death; and your mo-
“ ther, though far from being well, is obliged to
“ ferve as a nurfe to both.”
On this, report, which made me feel that I was
a fon, I left Bertrand with my equipage at the inn;
and, attended by my fecretary, who would not quit
me, repaired to my uncle’s houfe. As foon as 1 ap¬
peared before my mother, an emotion which! caufed
in her, fignified my prefence, before her eyes had.
didinguifhed my features. “ Son, (faid die, with
“ a melancholy air, after fhe had embraced me),
“ come and fee your father breathe his lad : you
“ are come time enough to be druck with that cruel
“ fpeiftacle.’' So faying, fhe carried me into a cham¬
ber where the unfortunate Bias of Santillane, lying
on a bed that too well denoted the poverty of an