"If those maidens, as you call them, and whom you admire so much," replied the Cripple, "have the graces of Diana's nymphs, they assuredly want their chastity to complete the picture. They are a parcel of good-natured females, who live upon a common fund. As dangerous as the fair damsels of chivalry who arrested, by their charms, the knights who passed before their castle walls, they seek to draw your less heroic youths within their bowers. And woe betide those whom they ensnare! To warn the passer-by of the peril which awaits him, beacons should be set before their doors, as such friendly monitors are placed on dangerous coasts to mark the places mariners should shun."
"I need not ask you," said Leandro Perez, "whither go those signors whom I see lolling in their carriages: they are doubtless going to the levée of the king." "You have said it," replied the Devil; "and if you also would attend it, I will carry you there before them: we shall have amusement enough, I promise you." "You could not have proposed a thing more suited to my taste," replied Zambullo; "and I anticipate all the pleasure you have promised me."
The Demon, although eager to satisfy Don Cleophas in his desires, carried him leisurely towards the palace, so that, in their way, the Student, perceiving some workmen employed upon a lofty doorway, asked if it were the portal of a church they were constructing. "No," replied Asmodeus, "it is the entrance to a new market; and it is magnificent as you see. However, though they raised its arch until its point were lost in clouds, it would be still unworthy of two Latin lines which are to adorn its front."
"What say you?" cried Leandro;—"what a notion would you give me of the verses that you speak of! I die with anxiety to hear them." "I will repeat them, then," replied the Devil; "and do you prepare to admire them.
'Quam bene Mercurius nunc merces vendit opimas,
Momus ubi fatuos vendidit ante sales!
"In these two lines is concealed one of the most delicate puns imaginable." "I cannot say I yet perceive its point," said the Student; "I do not clearly understand what is referred to by your fatuos sales." "You are not then aware," replied the Devil, "that on the spot where they are building this market for the sale of provisions, there formerly stood a monkish college in which youth was inducted to the humanities. The rectors of this college were in the habit of getting up plays, in which the students figured on the stage. These plays were, as you may suppose, flat enough as to effect and language; and were enlivened by ballets, so amusingly absurd, that everything danced, even to preterites and supines." "There! that is quite enough," interrupted Zambullo; "I am quite alive to the stuff of which college pieces are composed—excuse my pun—but the inscription is admirable."
Asmodeus and Don Cleophas had scarcely reached the grand staircase of the palace, when the courtiers commenced the inflating labour of mounting its polished steps. As they passed our unseen watchers, the Devil did the honour of announcing them to the Student: "There," said he, pointing with his finger as he spoke, "there is the Count de Villalonso, of the house of Puebla d'Ellerena; this is the Marquis de Castro Fueste; that is Don Lopez de Los Rios, president of the council of finance; and here is the Count de Villa Hombrosa." He did not, however, content himself thus with naming them; each had his legend: and the Demon's sardonic spirit found in the character of each some weakness to laugh at, or some vices to lay bare. None passed before him unnoted.
"That signor," said he of one, "is affable and obliging; and listens to you with an air of kindness. Do you ask his protection, he grants it freely; nay, proffers you his interest. It is pity that a man who loves so much to assist his fellow-creatures should have a memory so bad, that a quarter of an hour after you have spoken to him, he should forget all you have asked and he has promised.
"That duke," said he, speaking of another, "is one of the best characters that haunts the court. He is not, like most of his equals, one man at this moment and another the next; there is no caprice, no inequality in his disposition. I may add to this, that he pays not with ingratitude the affection that is shown for him, or the services that are rendered in his behalf. Unfortunately, again, he is too slothful to reward these kindnesses as they deserve: he leaves so long to be desired what is so rightfully expected, that when the favour is at last obtained, it is felt to have been dearly purchased."
After the Demon had thus exhibited to the Student the good and evil qualities of a great number of signors, he conducted him into a room in which there were all sorts and conditions of men, but especially so many chevaliers, that Don Cleophas could not help exclaiming: "What numberless knights! By our Lady! there must be enough and to spare of them in Spain." "I can answer for that," replied the Cripple; "and it is not at all surprising, since to be dubbed companion of St. Jago, or of Calatrava, your vigilants require no five-and-twenty thousand crowns in pocket or estate, as did formerly the knights of ancient Rome: you perceive therefore that knighthood is an article most admirably assorted.