"Tell me," said the Student, "who is that lovely woman at her toilet, talking with that handsome cavalier?" "Ah! truly," exclaimed the Cripple, "you have hit on a subject which well deserves your attention. The lady is a German widow, who lives at Madrid on her dower, and who visits in the best society; and the young man who is with her is the Signor Don Antonio de Monsalva.
"This cavalier, although a member of one of the noblest families in Spain, has pledged himself to the widow to espouse her; he has even given her a conditional promise of forfeiture to the amount of three thousand pistoles. He is, however, crossed in his love by his relations, who threaten to confine him if he do not immediately break off all connexion with the fair German, whom they look upon as an adventurer. The gallant, mortified to find his friends all thus opposed to his design, went yesterday evening to his mistress, who, perceiving his uneasiness, asked him its cause. This, after some hesitation, he told her, assuring her at the same time that whatever obstacles his family might raise, nothing should shake his constancy. The widow appeared delighted at his firmness, and they parted at midnight highly satisfied with each other.
"Monsalva has returned this morning, as you see, to pay his devoirs to the lady, whom finding at her toilet, he used every effort to beguile the time by new protestations of devotion. During the conversation, his Saxon mistress was releasing her auburn curls from the papers which had confined them during the night; and our cavalier, happening to take up one of these, heedlessly unfolded it, and, to his great surprise, observed therein his own hand-writing. 'What! madam,' said he, smiling, 'is this the use you make of these pledges of my affection?' 'Yes! Monsalva,' replied the lady; 'you behold the value that I put upon the promises of lovers who would marry me in opposition to their friends; they make excellent papillotes.' When, indeed, the cavalier discovered that it was his pledge of forfeiture which his mistress had thus destroyed, he was filled with admiration at this unlooked-for proof of disinterestedness, and he is now very properly vowing to her for the thousandth time, eternal fidelity.
"Cast your eyes," continued the Devil, "upon that tall man who is passing beneath us; he has a large common-place book under his arm, an ink-bottle hanging at his girdle, and a guitar slung at his back." "He is an odd-looking fellow indeed," cried the Student: "I would lay my life he is an original." "It is beyond a doubt," replied the Demon, "that he is a curious compound enough. There are such things as cynical philosophers in Spain; and there goes one. He is walking towards the Buen-Retiro, to reach a meadow in which there is a fountain, whose refreshing waters form a brook that glides like a silver serpent through the flowers. There will he pass the day, contemplating the beauties of nature, tinkling his guitar, and noting the reflections that the scene inspires in his common-place book. He carries in his pockets his ordinary food, that is to say, a piece of bread and some onions. Such is the sober life that he has led during ten years past; and were some Aristippus to say to him, as was erst spoken to Diogenes: 'If thou knewest how to pay thy court to the great, thou wouldst not eat onions;' this modern philosopher would reply: 'I could pay my court to the great as well as thou, if I would abase one man so low, as to make him cringe before another.'
"In truth, however, this philosopher formerly mixed greatly with the nobility; he even owes his fortune to their patronage; but, compelled to feel, as all must who move among persons more exalted than themselves, that the friendship of these lordlings was to him but an honourable species of servitude, he broke off all connection with them. At the time I speak of he kept his carriage; this he subsequently put down, on reflecting that, as he rolled along, the mud from his wheels was splashed perhaps upon his betters. Distributing his wealth among his indigent friends, he reserved for himself no more than would enable him to live as moderately as he does; and he kept so much, only because it appeared to him no less shameful for a philosopher to beg his bread from the people than from the aristocracy.
"Pity the cavalier who follows this philosopher, and whom you see accompanied by a dog. He can boast his descent from one of the most ancient and noble houses of Castile. He has been rich; but he ruined himself, like the Timon of Lucian, by feasting his friends every day; and, particularly, by giving splendid fêtes on the births and marriages of all the princes and princesses of Spain; in a word, on every occasion for rejoicing that he could make or find. No sooner did the discreet parasites who flocked round him see the ring slip over his purse than they abandoned his house and himself; one friend alone remains faithful to him now;—it is his dog."
