Chapter I: Lazaro Relates the Way of His Birth and Tells Whose Son He Is (1)

Well! your Honour must know, before anything else, that they call me Lazarillo de Tormes, and that I am the son of Thomé Gonçales and Antonia Perez, natives of Tejares,[9] a village near Salamanca. My birth was in the river Tormes,[10] for which reason I have the river for a surname, and it was in this manner.

[9] Tejares is a small village on the left bank of the river
Tormes, about two miles from Salamanca. It consists of a church
dedicated to San Pedro, and about fifty houses on the skirts of a
hill.

[10] The river Tormes rises in the Sierra de Gredos, a range of
hills dividing Estremadura from Old Castille, on the confines
of the province of Avila. Its chief sources are a large sheet
of water called the “Laguna de Gredos,” and a perennial stream
called “Tornella.” Receiving several streams from the Gredos
hills, the Tormes flows north, passing by Alba de Tormes, where
there is a stone bridge; and then turns north-west, passing
Salamanca, where there is another fine stone bridge, and Ledesma.
Finally, it falls into the Douro, on the Portuguese frontier. The
Tormes turns many flour mills.

My father, whom God pardon, had charge of a flour mill which was on the banks of that river. He was the miller there for over fifteen years, and my mother, being one night taken with me in the mill, she gave birth to me there. So that I may say with truth that I was born in the river.

When I was a child of eight years old, they accused my father of certain misdeeds done to the sacks of those who came to have their corn ground. He was taken into custody, and confessed and denied not, suffering persecution for justice’s sake. So I trust in God that he is in glory, for the Evangelist tells us that such are blessed. At that time there was a certain expedition against the Moors[11] and among the adventurers was my father, who was banished for the affair already mentioned. He went in the position of attendant on a knight who also went, and, with his master, like a loyal servant, he ended his life.

[11] This expedition against the Moors started from Malaga under
the command of Don Garcia de Toledo in 1510, when Lazarillo was
seven years old. The fleet first touched at Sicily and then made
for the island of Los Gelves, off the African coast, between
Tunis and Tripoli, now called Zerbi. With Toledo were Diego
de Vera and Count Pedro Navarro. Zerbi was a low sandy island
covered with palm-trees, ruled by a Sheikh of its own. The army
landed on the 8th of August 1510. But the Spaniards fell into an
ambuscade and were defeated, Toledo being among the slain. Four
thousand were killed or taken prisoners. The rest escaped to the
ships and returned to Sicily. Toledo was a grandson of the first
Duke of Alva.

[Sidenote: Death of Lazaro’s father, and his mother goes into service.]

My widowed mother, finding herself without husband or home, determined to betake herself to the good things so as to be among them; so she went to live in the city. She hired a small house, and was employed to prepare victuals for certain students. She also washed the clothes of the stable-boys who had charge of the horses of the Comendador de la Magdalena.[12] Thus she frequented the stables, she and a dark-coloured man, who was one of those who had the care of the horses. They came to know each other. [Sidenote: Flitting.] Sometimes he came to our house late, and went away in the morning. At other times he came to the door in the day-time, with the excuse that he wanted to buy eggs, and walked into the house. At first I did not like him, for I was afraid of his colour and his ugly face. But when I saw that his coming was the sign of better living, I began to like him, for he always brought pieces of meat, bread, and in the winter, fuel to warm us.

[12] Comendadores were knights of the Orders of Santiago,
Calatrava, and Alcantara. Each had a title affixed to their
knighthood. The Comendador of La Magdalena was a knight of the
Order of Alcantara.

[Sidenote: A swarthy stepfather and a little brown brother.]

This intercourse went on until one day my mother gave me a pretty little brown brother, whom I played with and helped to keep warm. I remember once that when my stepfather was fondling the child, it noticed that my mother and I were white, and that he was not. It frightened the child, who ran to my mother, pointing with its finger and saying, “Mother, he is ugly!” To this he replied laughing; but I noticed the words of my little brother, and, though so young, I said to myself, “How many there are in the world who run from others because they do not see themselves in them.”

It was our fate that the intimacy of the Zayde, for so they called my stepfather, came to the ears of the steward. [Sidenote: The punishment for receiving and living on stolen goods.] On looking into the matter he found that half the corn he gave out for the horses was stolen, also that the fuel, aprons, pillions, horse-cloths, and blankets were missing, and that when nothing else was left, the horse-shoes were taken. With all this my mother was helped to bring up the child. We need not wonder at a priest or a friar, when one robs the poor, and the other his female devotees to help a friend such as himself, when the love of a poor stable-lad brings him to this.

All I have related was proved, because they cross-questioned me with threats, and being a child I answered and let out all I knew from fear, [Sidenote: Stolen horse-shoes.] down to certain horse-shoes which, by my mother’s order, I sold to a blacksmith. They flogged my unhappy stepfather, and put my mother on the accustomed penance as a punishment. An order was given that she was not to enter the stables of the Comendador, nor to receive the flogged Zayde in her house.

The poor woman complied with the sentence that she might not lose all; and to avoid danger and silence evil tongues she went away into service. [Sidenote: Lazaro helps at the inn. Takes service with a blind man.] She was employed in the open gallery of an inn, and so she contrived to rear the little brother, though suffering from many difficulties. She raised him until he could walk, and me until I was a fine little boy, who went for wine and lights for the guests, and for anything else they wanted.

FIRST MASTER

HOW LAZARO TOOK SERVICE WITH A BLIND MAN

At that time a blind man came to lodge at the inn, who, seeing that I would do to lead him, asked for me from my mother. [Sidenote: Lazaro enters the service of a blind man.] She gave me to him, saying that I was the son of a good father, and boasting that he had been killed at the Island of Gelves.[13] She told the blind man that she trusted in God that I would not turn out a worse man than my father, and she begged him to treat me well and look after me, as I was an orphan. He answered that he would do so, and that he received me not as his servant but as his son. Thus it was that I began to serve and to lead my new master. We were in Salamanca for some days, but, as the earnings were not to my master’s liking, he determined to go somewhere else. [Sidenote: Lazaro’s farewell to his mother.] When we were about to depart, I went to see my mother, and, both weeping, she gave me her blessing and said, “I shall see you no more. Strive to be good, and may God direct your ways. You have been brought up, and are now put with a good master. Farewell!” And so I went away to my master who was waiting for me.

[13] See note, p. 5.

[Sidenote: A cruel trick of the wicked old blind man.]

We went out of Salamanca and came to the bridge. There is, at the entrance of it, an animal of stone[14] which almost has the shape of a bull. The blind man told me to go near this animal, and, being there, he said, “Lazaro, put your ear against this bull, and you will hear a great noise inside.” I did so, like a simpleton, believing it to be as he said. When he felt that my head was against the stone, he raised his hand and gave me a tremendous blow against the devil of a bull, so that I felt the pain for more than three days. [Sidenote: Lazaro and the blind man.] Then he said to me, “This will teach you that a blind man’s boy ought to be one point more knowing than the devil himself”; and he laughed heartily at his joke. It seemed to me that, in an instant, I awoke from my simplicity in which I had reposed from childhood. I said to myself, “This man says truly that it behoves me to keep my eyes open, for I am alone and have to think for myself.”

[14] There was a huge mass of granite rudely carved in the shape
of an animal, which had been on the bridge from time immemorial;
and which Lazarillo thought was like a bull. Its great weight
was considered a danger, and it was removed about thirty years
ago. It is now in the vestibule of the cloister of San Domingo at
Salamanca, but without a head.

We set out on our road, and in a very few days I showed myself to be sprightly, which pleased the blind man, and he said, “I can give you neither gold nor silver, but I can teach you much in the ways of getting a livelihood.” [Sidenote: Wonderful sagacity and cleverness of the blind man.] It was so that, after a few days, he showed me many things, and being blind himself, he enlightened and guided me in the ways of life. I mention these trifles to your Honour to show how much knowledge men must have when they are down, and to keep from falling when they are exalted.

Speaking of the good there was in my blind man, your Honour must know that since God created the world He has not made a being more astute and sagacious. In his own line he was unequalled. He knew a hundred or more prayers of the choir, he recited in a low and very tuneful voice, he put on a devout and very humble countenance when he recited, without making faces or gestures as others usually do. Besides this he had a hundred other ways and means of getting money. He knew how to make prayers on different occasions, for women who were childless, for those who were about to bear children, and for those who had married unhappily, that their husbands might like them well. He foretold whether a woman would have a boy or a girl. In the matter of medicine he said that Galen did not possess half his knowledge for curing toothaches, fainting fits, or illnesses of mothers. Finally, no one mentioned what pain or illness he or she was suffering from, but he told them at once--do this, you should do that, gather such a herb, take such a root. In this way he went with all the world after him, especially the women. They believed whatever he said, and from them he drew great profits by the arts I have described, for he gained more in a month than a hundred other blind men would in a year. I also desire that your Honour should know that, in spite of all he acquired and had, I never met a man so avaricious and stingy, insomuch that he nearly killed me with hunger, depriving me of the necessaries of life.

[Sidenote: The blind man’s way of making money and his avarice.]

I tell the truth, that if, by way of subtlety and cunning, I had not found a remedy, I should many times have succumbed to starvation. With all his knowledge and experience, I managed so well that, oftener than not, I got the best of it. On account of these matters, there were infernal rows between us, of which I will relate some but not all.

He carried the bread, and all the rest of his things, in a linen knapsack, closing the mouth with an iron chain having a padlock and key. He put in and took out his things himself, using great vigilance, and he kept such a close account that there was not a man in all the world who could have taken so much as a crumb without his knowing it. [Sidenote: Lazaro finds his way into the blind man’s knapsack.] Well, I had to take the lazar’s allowance which he gave me. It was all despatched in less than two mouthfuls. After he had locked the bag and was not looking out, thinking that I was attending to other things, by a little unstitching I often opened one side of the bag and sewed it up again; bleeding the avaricious knapsack not only of bread but of good pieces of bacon and sausage. Thus I watched for convenient times to make up for the infernal wrong that the wicked blind man inflicted on me.

[Sidenote: Lazaro’s adroit contrivance with the half “blancas.”]

All that I could pilfer and steal I carried in half “blancas.” When they paid him for saying prayers for them, they gave him a whole “blanca.” But as he could not see, I had got it in my mouth, and put a half blanca in its place, before his hand had reached it, quick as he was, so that he only got half-price. The evil-minded blind man complained when he found that it was not a whole “blanca.” He said to me: “How the devil is it that since you have been with me they only give half ‘blancas,’ and before it used to be a whole ‘blanca’ or even a ‘maravedi’ that they gave me?[15] The ill-luck has come with you.” So he shortened up the prayers and did not give them more than half, ordering me to remind him to stop by pulling his sleeve. Then he began to cry out that they had called for such and such a prayer from him, such as he used to recite, and that he had given it.

[15] The copper _maravedi_ was a coin the value of which varied.
It may be taken as a penny. The _blanca_ was so called from the
whiteness of the metal of which it was made. In the time of
Alonso XI. there were three blancas to the maravedi. From 1497
the maravedi was worth two blancas. The great dictionary of the
Spanish Academy quotes _Lazarillo de Tormes_ as the authority for
the value of the blanca and half blanca, or farthing.

The blind man used to have a small jug of wine near him when he dined; and quick as thought I gave it silent kisses when I put it down for him. But it was not long before he noticed the loss in what he drank, so he never let the jug out of his hand, but always kept it by him. [Sidenote: Various ways of getting at the wine.] However, he had no magnet to point to what went on, while I had a long oaten straw which I prepared for this need of mine. Slipping it into the mouth of the jug I sucked up the wine to my heart’s content. The old rascal, being very astute, suspected something. So he put the jug between his knees and, covering the mouth with his hand, drank in security. Seeing the wine go I craved for it. The straw being no longer of any avail, I hit upon another plan. I succeeded in making a tiny hole in the bottom of the jug, and stopped it with a small piece of wax. When dinner-time came I pretended to be cold, and got between the old man’s legs, to warm myself at the poor little light we had. With the same light I melted the wax, and very soon a little fountain began to drain into my mouth, which I placed so that I should not lose a drop. When the poor old man wanted to drink he got nothing. His astonishment was expressed in curses, devoting the wine and the jug to the devil. “You cannot think that I have been drinking, uncle!” I said, “for you have not let the jug out of your hand.” But he gave the jug so many twists and turns that at last he found the hole. He said nothing. [Sidenote: The wicked blind man’s cruel revenge.] Next day I was sucking at my hole as usual, thinking no evil, and little dreaming of what he was getting ready for me. I was seated on the ground, taking in those delicious draughts, my face turned up to heaven, my eyes half closed the better to enjoy the toothsome liquor, when the wicked blind man took his revenge. He raised the jug with both hands, and, with all his might, sent it crashing down on my mouth. Poor Lazaro was quite off his guard, being careless and joyous as at other times. Truly it seemed to me as if the sky and all that was in it had fallen upon me. The blow was so great that the pieces of the jug cut my face in several parts and broke my teeth, so that I remain without them to this day.

[Sidenote: A coolness arises between Lazaro and the blind man.]

From that time I wished evil to the cruel blind man, and, although he was kind to me afterwards and cured me, I saw very well that he enjoyed my cruel punishment. He washed the bruises and places torn by the bits of the broken jug, but he smiled as he did so, saying, “What would you have, Lazaro? If I wish you ill I cure you and restore you to health,” with other jokes which were not to my taste, when I had only half recovered from my wounds. I now wanted to free myself from him, thinking that a few more such blows might free him from me. He was not much inclined to see to my health and welfare, and even if I had wished to forgive him the blow with the jug, his evil treatment of me from that time would have prevented it.

Without cause or reason, the malignant blind man was always beating me and knocking me about. If any one asked him why he treated me so badly, he told the story of the jug, adding: “Think you that my boy is a little innocent? Well, listen and judge whether the devil himself could have played such tricks. Who could believe that such a small boy could be so depraved.” Then they said: “Chastise him in God’s name,” and he never did anything else.

So I led him by the worst ways, seeking to do him harm, taking him over stony places and into mud. [Sidenote: Lazaro is beaten, so the blind man is led into the mud.] He always beat me on the back of my head, so that it was covered with bruises, and although I cried out that I did not do it on purpose, but only because there was no better road, he did not believe me, such was the astuteness and intelligence of the old ruffian.

In order that your Honour may judge of the cleverness of this knowing old man I will relate one thing out of many that happened while I was with him. When we left Salamanca his intention was to go to Toledo, for he said that the people there were richer, though not very charitable. He repeated this saying, “The hard man gives more than the penniless man.” We took the road by the best places, where we were well received. It happened that we came to a place called Almorox[16] at the time of the vintage. A grape-gatherer gave us a bunch out of charity. As the baskets are knocked about, and the grapes at that time are very hard, the blind man kept the bunch in his hand and, to content me, he determined to have a banquet with it, instead of putting it in his bag. For on that day he had given me many blows and kicks.

[16] Almorox is a village with three hundred houses formed in
irregular streets and an open square. The church of San Cristoval
has a fine north door. The place belonged to the Duke of
Escalona. Its vineyards produce wine like Valdepeñas. It is about
twelve miles from the town of Escalona.

We sat down in an enclosed place and he said: “Now I am going to treat you with liberality. [Sidenote: The way Lazaro and the blind man shared a bunch of grapes.] We will both eat this bunch of grapes in equal shares, and it shall be in this way. You take one and I will take another. You must only take one at a time, and I will take another until it is finished. In this way there can be no trick.” So we began. At the second turn the old traitor began to take two at a time. As he had broken the agreement I thought that I ought to do the same. Not content to do as he did, I began to take three at a time. When the bunch was finished, he sat for some time with the stalk in his hand. [Sidenote: An example of the blind man’s cleverness.] Then he said, “Lazaro, you have deceived me. I would swear to God that you have been eating three at a time.” “I did not eat so,” I declared. “Why do you suspect me?” “Would you know how I am certain that you took three at a time?” he replied. “It is because when I began to take two at a time you said nothing.”

Though only a boy I noted the cleverness of the old man. But to avoid being dull I will leave out many things both curious and remarkable that happened to me while I was with my first master, for I wish to come to the leave-taking, and with that there is an end of him.

We were at Escalona,[17] a town belonging to the Duke of that name, lodging at an inn.

[17] The Duke of Escalona was the maternal grandfather of the
author. The town of Escalona is on the right bank of the river
Alberche, and about one hundred feet above it. Escalona is
twenty-five miles north-west of Toledo. It was surrounded by a
wall ten feet thick and thirty feet high, with two gates. In the
principal square there were arcades and a stone cross. Juan II.
gave Escalona to the Constable Alvaro de Luna in 1424, who built
a great palace there, which was demolished by the French under
Marshal Soult. King Henry IV. gave Escalona to Juan Pacheco, the
Master of Santiago. In Lazarillo’s time it belonged to Don Diego
Lopez de Pacheco, second Duke of Escalona and Marquis of Villena.
He distinguished himself in the last Moorish war in Granada, and
died in 1529. He resided in the old palace built by the Constable
Alvaro de Luna, where he dispensed hospitality, among many others
to Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman (see translation of that young
adventurer’s life and acts, p. 71, Hakluyt Society, 1862). Madoz
states that, in his time, Escalona consisted of 190 houses,
population 580.

[Sidenote: Lazaro falls into temptation and eats the sausage.]

The blind man gave me a piece of sausage to roast. When the sausage had been basted and the toasted bread on which the grease was poured had been eaten, he took a maravedi out of his bag and sent me to fetch wine from a tavern. The devil put the temptation before my eyes, which, as they say, is how a thief is made. There was also a long piece of colewort[18] on the fire, which, being unfit for the pot, ought to have been thrown away. There was nobody but the blind man and myself, and I became very greedy under the delicious smell of the sausage. I only thought of present enjoyment, without considering what might happen afterwards. As the blind man took the money out of his bag, I took the sausage, and quickly put the colewort to be cooked in its place. When my master handed the money to me I took it, and went for the wine, not failing to eat the sausage.

[18] _Nabo_, called colewort in the Neuman and Baretti
dictionary. More likely what Gervase Markham (_Country Farm_, p.
185) calls “navet,” a sort of small turnip.

When the sinful blind man found the colewort in the pot, of which he knew nothing, he thought it was the sausage and bit it. Then he said, “What is this, Lazaro?” I said “Had I not gone for the wine? Some one else has been here and has done it for fun.” “No! No!” he cried, “that is impossible, for I have never let the pan out of my hand.” I then turned to swear, and swore again, that it was not me. But it availed me nothing. From the cunning of the cursed blind man nothing could be hidden.

[Sidenote: Dreadful trouble about the sausage.]

My master got up and took me by the head. Presently he began to smell me, and forcing my mouth open, he put his nose in. It was a long pointed nose. What with the turn I had, the choke in my throat, and the fright I was in, the sausage would not stay on my stomach, and the whole thing came back to its owner. The evil blind man so worked my inside that the half-masticated sausage and the long nose came out of my mouth together. O Lord! who would not rather have been buried than go through that misery? The rage of the perverse old man was such that if people had not been drawn there by the noise, he would not have left me alive. They took me from him, leaving his few hairs in my hands, and his face and throat all scratched, which he deserved for his cruel treatment of me.

The blind man related all my misfortunes over and over again, including the story of the jug and of the bunch of grapes. The laughter was so loud that all the passers-by came in to see the fun; for the old wretch told the stories of my misfortunes so well that even I, ill-treated as I was, could not help half joining in the laughter. [Sidenote: Lazaro recovers from the effects of the sausage.] Remembering my troubles there came a weakness upon me. But my stomach recovered, and the landlady of the inn, with others who were present, washed my face and throat with the wine that had been brought to drink. This enraged the wicked blind man, who declared that I would cost him more wine with my washings in one year, than he could drink in two.

“Lazaro,” he said, “you owe more to the wine than to your father. He got you once, but the wine has brought you to life several times.” Then he counted how many times he had torn and bruised my face and afterwards cured it with wine. “If there is a man in the world who ought to be lucky with wine,” he added, “it is you.”

Those who were washing me laughed a good deal at what the old man said, though I dissented. However, the prognostications of the blind rascal did not turn out false, and afterwards I often thought of that man, who certainly had the spirit of prophecy.[19] The evil things he did to me made me sad, though I paid him back, as your Honour will presently hear.

[19] See p. 98.

[Sidenote: Lazaro determined to leave the blind man.]

Seeing all this, and how the blind man made me a laughing-stock, I determined that at all hazards I would leave him. This resolution was always in my mind, and the last game he played confirmed it. On another day we left the town to seek alms. It had rained a great deal in the previous night. It continued to rain in the day-time, and we got under some arcades in that town, so as to keep out of the wet. Night was coming on and the rain did not cease. The blind man said to me, “Lazaro! this rain is very persistent, and as the night closes in it will not cease, so we will make for the inn in good time. To go there we have to cross a stream which will have become swollen by the heavy rain.” I replied, “Uncle! the stream is now very broad, but if you like I can take you to a place where we can get across without being wet, for it becomes much narrower, and by jumping we can clear it.” This seemed good advice, so he said, “You are discreet and you shall take me to that place where the stream becomes so narrow, for it is winter time, and a bad thing to get our feet wet.” [Sidenote: Lazaro prepares to revenge himself on the blind man.] Seeing that things were going as I wished, I took him out of the arcade, and placed him just in front of a stone pillar that stood in the square. Then I said to him, “Uncle, this is the narrowest part of the stream.”

[Sidenote: Lazaro’s cruel vengeance on the blind man.]

As the rain continued and he was getting wet, we were in a hurry to get shelter from the water that was falling upon us. The principal thing was (seeing that God blinded my understanding in that hour) to be avenged. The old man believed in me and said, “Put me in the right place while you jump over the stream.” So I put him just in front of the pillar, and placed myself behind it. I then said, “Jump with all your might so as to clear the stream.” I had hardly finished speaking, when the poor old man, balancing himself like a goat, gave one step backwards, and then sprang with all his force. His head came with such a noise against the pillar that it sounded like a great calabash. He fell down half dead. “How was it you could smell the sausage and not the post? Oh! Oh!” I shouted. [Sidenote: Lazaro leaves his first master.] I left him among several people who ran to help him, while I made for the gate of the town at a sharp trot, so that before nightfall I might be in Torrijos, not knowing nor caring what afterwards happened to my blind man.[20]

[20] The “pillar” was a stone cross which still stands in the
_plaza_ of Escalona.

SECOND MASTER

HOW LAZARO TOOK SERVICE WITH A CLERGYMAN, AND OF THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO HIM.

[Sidenote: The clergyman’s chest.]

Next day, as I did not feel that I should be quite safe at Torrijos,[21] I stopped at a place called Maqueda,[22] where for my sins I took service with a clergyman. Going to him to ask for alms, he inquired whether I knew how to assist at Mass. I said yes, which was true, for though the blind man ill-treated me, he taught me many useful things, and one of them was this. Finally the clergyman took me as his servant. [Sidenote: Out of the frying-pan into the fire.] I had escaped from the thunder to fall under the lightning. For compared with this priest, the blind man was an Alexander the Great. I will say no more than that all the avarice in the world was combined in this man, but I know not whether it was naturally born in him or whether it was put on with the priestly habit. He had an old chest closed with a key which he carried with him, fastened to the belt of his gown. When he brought the “bodigos”[23] from the church, they were quickly locked up in the chest, and there was nothing to eat in the house such as is to be seen in other houses, a piece of bacon, some bits of cheese on a shelf or in a cupboard, or a few pieces of bread that may have remained over from the table. It seemed to me that the sight of such things, even if I could not have them, would have been a consolation.

[21] Torrijos is sixteen miles north-west of Toledo, and eight
miles from the Tagus, in a valley on the road from Maqueda to
Toledo. It was walled, and still has two old gateways. Madoz
gives it 480 houses, and in the plaza is the palace of the Count
of Altamira, built of stone. The church is dedicated to San Gil.
Here Beatriz, the daughter of King Pedro by Maria de Padilla,
was born in 1353. The country round yields abundant oil, and the
place is sometimes called Torrijos de los Olivares.

[22] Maqueda is six leagues north-west of Toledo, built on a
hill, on the margin of a stream of the same name which falls
into the Alberche, a tributary of the Tagus. It has 112 houses,
scattered along badly paved dirty streets. There is an old
castle, and two churches, San Juan Bautista and San Domingo.
Water is abundant. Maqueda was taken from the Moors by Alfonso
VI. in 1083, and in 1177 it was granted to the knights of
Calatrava. Ferdinand and Isabella made Diego de Cardenas Duke of
Maqueda.

[23] Small loaves made of the finest flour, offered to the
Church. The Dictionary of the Spanish Academy quotes Lazarillo de
Tormes as the authority for the meaning of this word.

[Sidenote: Nothing in the clergyman’s house but an old chest, and a string of onions.]

There was only a string of onions, and these were under lock and key in an upper chamber, one being allowed for every four days. If I asked for the key, to fetch the allowance, and any one else was present, he put his hand in his pocket, and gave it to me with great ceremony, telling me to take it and return at once without taking anything else; as if all the conserves of Valencia were there. Yet there was not a thing in the room but the onions hanging from a nail, and he kept such a strict account of them, that if I ever took more than my allowance it cost me dear. At last I was near dead with hunger.

If he showed little charity to me, he treated himself as badly. Small bits of meat formed his usual food for dinner and supper. It is true that he shared the gravy with me, but nothing more except a small piece of bread. On Saturdays they eat sheep’s head in those parts, and my master sent me for one that was to cost three maravedis. He cooked it and ate all the eyes, tongue, brains, and the meat off the cheeks, giving me the well-picked bone on a plate, and saying, “Take! Eat! Triumph! for you is the world, and you live better than the Pope.” [Sidenote: Lazaro was sinking into the silent tomb from hunger.] At the end of three weeks I became so weak that I could scarcely stand on my feet for hunger. I saw myself sinking down into the silent tomb. If God and my own intelligence had not enabled me to avail myself of ingenious tricks, there would have been no remedy for me.

[Sidenote: Extraordinary stinginess of the clergyman.]

When we were at the offertory not a single blanca was dropped into the shell without being registered by him. He kept one eye on the congregation and the other on my hands, moving his eyes about as if they were quicksilver. He knew exactly how many blancas had been given, and as soon as the offertory was over, he took the shell from me and put it on the altar. During all the time I lived, or rather was dying in his service, I never was master of a single blanca. I never brought a blanca worth of wine from a tavern, but it was put into his chest to last for a week. To conceal his extreme stinginess he said to me, “Look here, boy! Priests have to be very frugal in eating and drinking, and for this reason I do not feed like other people.” But he lied shamefully. For at meetings and funerals where we had to say prayers and responses, and where he could get food at the expense of others, he ate like a wolf and drank more than a proposer of toasts.

[Sidenote: Lazaro prayed for the deaths of sick people, for the sake of the funeral feasts.]

And why do I speak of funerals? God forgive me! for I never was an enemy to the human race except on those occasions. Then we could eat well, and I wished, and even prayed to God that He would kill some one every day. When we gave the Sacraments to the sick, especially extreme unction, the priest was called upon to say prayers for those who were present. I was certainly not the last in prayer, for with all my heart I besought the Lord that He would take the sick man to Himself. If any one recovered I devoted him to the devil a thousand times. He who died received many benedictions from me, yet the number of persons who died during the whole time I was there, which was over six months, only amounted to twenty. I verily believed that I killed them, or rather that they died in answer to my prayers, the Lord seeing how near death I was, and that their deaths gave me life.

But there was no remedy, for if on the days of the funerals I lived, on the days when no one died I was starving, and I felt it all the more. So that there seemed to be no rest for me but in death; and I often desired it for myself, as well as for others.

I frequently thought of leaving my penurious master, but two things detained me. The first was that I feared my legs would not carry me, so reduced was I by starvation. The other was the consideration that I had had two masters. The first starved me, the second brought me to death’s door, and a third might finish me. It appeared that any change might be for the worse.

[Sidenote: Lazaro is saved from starvation by an angel of a locksmith.]

One day when my wretched master was out, a locksmith came to the door by chance. I thought that he was an angel sent to me by the hand of God, in the dress of a workman. He asked me whether I had any work for him to do. Inspired by the Holy Spirit I replied: “Uncle! I have lost a key, and I fear that my master will whip me. Kindly see if there are any on your bunch that will fit the lock, and I will pay you for it.” [Sidenote: The chest opened.] The angelic locksmith began to try his keys, and soon the chest was opened, and I beheld the Lord’s gift in the form of bread. “I have no money,” I said, “to give you for the key, but take what you like in payment.” He took one of the loaves that looked the best, and went away quite satisfied, leaving the key with me. [Sidenote: Lazaro is happy until the clergyman begins to smell a rat.] I did not touch anything, at the moment, because I did not feel the need. My wretched master came back, and, as God willed it, he did not look into the trunk which that angel had opened. But next day, when he had gone out, I opened my bread paradise and took a loaf between the hands and teeth. In two _credos_ I made it invisible. Not forgetting the open chest, I rejoiced to think that, with this remedy, my life would be less miserable. Thus I was happy with him for two days, but it was not destined that this should continue. [Sidenote: The clergyman counts the loaves of bread.] For on the third day, at the very time that I was dying of hunger, he was to be seen at our chest, counting and recounting the loaves. I dissimulated, and, in my secret prayers and devotions, I implored that he might be blinded. After he had been counting for a long time, he said: “If I did not keep such an exact account I should think that some loaves have been taken from this chest. From this day I shall have a more accurate account. There are now nine loaves and part of another.” “New misfortunes have come,” I said to myself, and I felt that my stomach would soon be in the same wretched state as before.

When the priest went out, I opened the chest as some consolation, and when I saw the bread I began to worship it, giving it a thousand kisses. But I did not pass that day so happily as the day before. As my hunger increased, so did my longing for more bread. At length God, who helps the afflicted, showed me a remedy. I said to myself: “This chest is old, and broken in some parts, though the holes are very small. The belief might be suggested that rats had got through these holes and had eaten some of the bread.” It would not do to eat wholesale, but I began to crumble the bread over some not very valuable cloth, taking some and leaving some, and thus I got a meal. When the priest came to examine the damage, he did not doubt that it had been done by the rats, because it seemed to be done just in the way that rats would do it. He looked over the chest from one end to the other, and saw the holes by which the rats might have entered.

He then called to me and said: “Lazaro, look! Look what damage has been done to our bread last night!” I appeared to be much astonished, and wondered how it could have happened. [Sidenote: It was the rats.] “It is the rats,” he declared, “they would leave us nothing.” We went to our meal, and even there it pleased God that I should come off well; for he gave me more than usual, including all the parts he thought the rats had touched, saying: “Eat this which the rat has cleaned.” Thus the work of my hands, or rather nails, was added to my allowance.

[Sidenote: The clergyman boards up all the rat holes in the old chest.]

Presently I beheld another piece of work. The wretched priest was pulling nails out of the wall, and looking for small boards with which to cover all the holes in the ancient chest. “O Lord!” I then said to myself, “to what miseries and disasters are we born, and how brief are our pleasures in this our toilsome life! I thought that by this poor little contrivance I might find a way to pass out of my misery, and I even ventured to rejoice at my good-fortune, and now my ill-luck has returned.” Using all the diligence in his power, for misers as a rule are not wanting in that commodity, he shut the door of my consolation while he boarded up the holes in the chest. Thus I made my lamentation, as an end was made to the work, with many small boards and nails. “Now,” said the priest, “the traitor rats will find little in this house, and had better leave us, for there is not a hole left large enough for a mosquito to get in.”

When he was gone I opened the chest with my key without any hope of profit from doing so. There were the three or four loaves which my master thought the rats had not begun upon. Night and day I thought of some other plan, with the help of my hunger, for they say that it is an aid to invention. It certainly was so with me. One night I was deep in thought, meditating how I might use the contents of the chest again. My master was snoring loudly, so I took an old knife and went to the chest. I used the knife in the way of a gimlet, and as the ancient piece of furniture was without strength or heart, it soon surrendered, and allowed me to make a nice hole. This done I opened the chest, had a good meal, and went back to my straw bed, where I rested and slept.

Next day my master saw both the hole and the damage done to his provisions. He began to commend the rats to the devil, saying, “What shall we say to this! Never have I known rats in this house until now.” He may well have spoken the truth, for such creatures do not stay where there is nothing to eat. [Sidenote: What the clergyman did by day, Lazaro undid by night.] He turned to find more nails in the wall, and a small board to cover the hole. Night came and he retired to rest, while I set to work to open by night what he had closed up in the day. It was like the weaving of Penelope, for all he did by day I undid by night. In a few days we got the poor old chest into such a state, that it might be described as a sieve of old time rather than a chest.

When the miserly priest saw that his remedies were of no use he said: “This chest is so knocked about, and the wood is so old and weak that there is not a rat against which it can be defended. We will leave it without defence outside, and I will go to the cost of three or four reals. As the best outside guard is no use, I will attack these cursed rats from the inside.” He presently borrowed a rat-trap, and begged some pieces of cheese from the neighbours. This was a great help to me. In truth I did not need much sauce for my bread, still, I enjoyed the bits of cheese which I got from the rat-trap.

[Sidenote: The rat-trap adds cheese to Lazaro’s bread.]

When he found the bread eaten in rat’s fashion, the cheese gone, and no rats caught, he again commended the rats to the devil. He asked the neighbours how the cheese could have been taken without the rat being caught. They agreed that it could not have been a rat. One neighbour remembered that there used to be a snake in the house, and they all concurred that it must have been the snake. [Sidenote: It must have been a snake.] As it is long it could have taken the cheese without being caught in the trap. This exercised the mind of my master very much, and from that time he slept so lightly that the slightest sound made him think that the snake was going into the chest. Then he would jump up and give the chest many violent blows with a stick, intending to frighten the snake. The noise used to awaken the neighbours, while I could not sleep. He rolled about my straw, and me with it, because the neighbours said that snakes liked to keep warm in the straw, or in cradles where there are babies, where they even bit them and were dangerous. I generally went to sleep again, and he told me about it in the morning, saying: “Did you feel nothing last night, my boy? I was after the snake, and I even think it came to your bed, for when snakes are cold they seek for warmth.” I replied, “It was lucky it did not bite me, but I am terribly frightened.” I did not get up or go to the chest at night, but waited until my master was in church. He used to see the inroads on his bread, but knew not how to apply a remedy.

I began to be afraid that, with all my diligence, he might find my key which I kept amongst the straw. I thought it would be safer to put it in my mouth. [Sidenote: Lazaro determined to keep the key in his mouth--a fatal mistake.] For when I lived with the blind man I used my mouth as a purse, keeping ten or twelve maravedis in it, all in half blancas, without being prevented from eating. Without that plan I could not have kept a blanca from the knowledge of the cursed blind man, for I had not a seam or a lining which he did not examine very minutely. So, as I have said, I put the key in my mouth every night, and slept without fear that my wizard of a master would find it. But when misfortune comes, wit and diligence are of no avail.

It chanced, owing to ill-luck, or rather owing to my sins, that I was sleeping one night with the key in my mouth in such a position that the air went out of the hollow in the key and caused it to whistle so that, for my sins, my master heard it. So he got up with the club in his hand, and came to me very quietly that the snake might not hear, for he felt no doubt that it was the snake. He thought that it was in the straw, and he raised the club with the intention of giving it such a blow as to kill it. So he hit me on the head with all his force and left me senseless.

[Sidenote: Lazaro is found out, and half killed in the process.]

Seeing the quantity of blood he understood the harm he had done me, and went in a great hurry to get a light. Coming back he found me with the key in my mouth, half of it projecting, in the same way as it was when I was whistling with it. The killer of snakes was astounded that it should have been the key. He took it out of my mouth to see what it was. Then he went to try it in the lock, and found out my practices. He said that the rats and the snake that devoured his substance were found. What happened in the next three days I know not, for I was in the belly of the whale. At the end of that time my senses returned. I found myself lying on my straw, and my head covered with unguents and plasters. I was astounded and said: “What is this?” The cruel priest answered that he had caught the rats and the serpent. Finding myself so evilly treated, I began to understand what had happened. At this time an old woman came in and dressed my wound. Then the neighbours began to take off the bandages. They rejoiced when they saw that I had recovered my senses, and began to laugh over my misfortunes while I, as the sinner, mourned over them. [Sidenote: Lazaro recovers and is shown the door.] With all this they gave me something to eat, so that in a fortnight I could get up and was out of danger, though suffering from hunger. On another day, when I was up, my master took me by the hand and put me outside the door. Being in the street, he said: “From to-day, Lazaro, you are your own master and not my servant. Seek another master, and go, in God’s name; for I do not want such a diligent person in my service, who is only fit to be a blind man’s guide.” He then crossed himself as if he thought I had a devil, went back into the house, and shut the door.

THIRD MASTER

HOW LAZARO TOOK SERVICE WITH A GENTLEMAN, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM

Thus I was obliged to seek strength out of weakness, and little by little, with the help of kind people, I reached this famous city of Toledo. [Sidenote: Lazaro reaches Toledo, and seeks for a master.] At the end of fifteen days, by the mercy of God, my wound was healed. While I was ill people gave me some alms, but as soon as I was well they all said, “You lazy little vagabond, go and seek for a master whom you may serve.” “But where can I find one?” I said to myself.

[Sidenote: On the road to Toledo.]