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Gil Blas: Mencia

He soon fell into the hands of bandits, who made him join them on their raids. In one of them they captured Dona Mencia, wife of the Marques de la Guardia, and brought her to their cavern. Gil Blas pretended to be ill and escaped with the grateful lady. He was arrested as one of the bandits, and as he was wearing clothes recognized by one of their victims, and his pockets were full of money, he was thrown into jail. After several weeks' imprisonment his innocence was established, but the jailer had robbed him of everything. At Burgos he sought out Dona Mencia, who presented him with a hundred ducats and a costly ring.

He bought a pretentious outfit for twice its value and decided that instead of becoming a licentiate, "he would make his way in this world rather than think of the next." A second gift of a thousand ducats from Dona Mencia confirmed him in his resolve.

He bought two mules and, hiring a servant, set forth for Madrid. His servant conspired with several rogues to make a fool of him. One of them, Camilla, pretending to be related to Dona Mencia, invited him to hired lodgings as if to her own home, and there he was feasted and flattered. As a mark of special favor she exchanged her ruby ring, which she declared was worth three hundred pistoles, for his, and procured him an invitation to a great country-seat for hunting and fishing.

But when he arose in the morning his servant, his two mules, his portmanteau, and Dona Mencia's pretended relatives had vanished. The ruby ring was a cheat. Fortunately he fell in with a boyhood friend, Fabricio, at Valladolid and by his advice became a servant to a clergyman, the Canon Sedillo, at whose house he led an easy life. The canon soon died, leaving him his worthless library and the good fortune of becoming assistant to his physician, the famous Doctor Sangrado. Under him Gil Blas became particularly proficient in his method of practice, which consisted of nothing but blood-letting and "drenchings of water." He declared that he made as many widows and orphans as the siege of Troy; one of his victims was the betrothed of a giant Biscayan, who threatened him with dire vengeance, and he fled to Madrid, where he became valet to a mysterious and wealthy Don Bernardo, his only duty being to keep the wardrobe brushed and to tend door. But he happened to fall in with Rolando, captain of the brigands; and Don Bernardo, seeing him in such suspicious company, dismissed him with six ducats.

From one reason or another he kept changing employers; he served now a dissipated hidalgo, then an intriguing actress, then an aged libertine whose daughter, in gratitude for aiding her to win back her recreant lover, Don Luis Pacheco, gave him a hundred pistoles, and, on her father's death, got him a place with still another aged roue, Don Gonzales, whose dressing operations, when he arose at noon, reminded him of the resurrection of Lazarus. Here again he acted as intermediary in a love-affair, but when he told his infatuated employer that he was being duped he was turned off, though given a recommendation to the Marquesa de Chaves, reputed the cleverest woman in Madrid, because she was as solemn as an owl and rarely spoke. Her salon, called "The Fashionable Institution for Literature, Taste, and Science," was the resort for the wits and notables of Madrid.