Languages & literature > Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane > Volume 2

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GIL BLAS.
well have dispensed with the relation of this impertinent
discourse. Bring me no more such idle tales; and tell
this young madman, when next he accosts you, to play
off his shallow artifices on some more accommodating ,
fool; but, at all events, let him choose a more gentle¬
manly recreation, than that of lounging all day at his *
window, and prying into the privacy of my apartment.’
“ This message was faithfully delivered at my next in¬
terview with Felicia, who assured me that her mistress’s
modes of speech were not to be taken in their literal
construction, but that my affairs were in the best possible
train. For my part, being little read in the science of
coquetry, and finding no favourable sense on the face of
the author’s original words, I was half out of humour
with the wire-drawn comments of the critic. She laughed
at my misgiving, and asked her friend for pen, ink, and
paper, saying : ‘ Sir knight of the doleful countenance,
write immediately to Donna Helena as dolefully as you
look. Make echo ring with your sufferings; outsigh the
river’s murmur ; and, above all, let rocks and woods re¬
sound with the prohibition of appearing at your window.
Then pawn your existence on obeying her, though with¬
out the possibility ever to redeem the pledge. Turn all
that nonsense into pretty sentences, as you gay deceivers
so well know how to do, and leave the rest to me. The
event, I flatter myself, will redound more than you are
aware to the honour of my penetration.’
“ He must have been a strange lover, who would not
have profited by so opportune an occasion of writing to
his mistress. My letter was couched in the most pathe¬
tic terms. Felicia smiled at its contents; and said, ‘that
if the women knew the art of infatuating men, the men
in return had borrowed their influence over women from
the arch wheedler himself.’ My privy counsellor took
the note, and went back to Don George’s, with a special
injunction that my windows should be fast shut for
some days.
“ ‘ Madam,’ said she, going up to Donna Helena, ‘ I
met Don Gaston. He must needs endeavour to come
round me with his flattering speeches. In tremulous ac-