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.
[Illustration]
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.”
[Illustration: “_‘It is the rats,’ he declared._”]
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.]