only life. There is nothing in the world like it. If rich men
tried it, they would give up their estates for it, just the way
the ancient philosophers gave up all they possessed to go over
to that life. I say "go over" because the life of a philosopher
and the life of a picaro is the same. The only difference is
that philosophers gave up all they had for their love of that
kind of life, and picaros find it without giving up anything.
Philosophers abandoned their estates to contemplate natural and
divine things, the movements of the heavens, with less
distraction; picaros do it to sow all their wild oats.
Philosophers threw their goods into the sea; picaros throw them
in their stomachs. Philosophers despised those things as vain
and transitory; while picaros don't care for them because they
bring along cares and work--something that goes against their
profession. So the picaresque life is more leisurely than the
life of kings, emperors, and popes. I decided to travel this
road because it was freer, less dangerous, and never sad.
IX. How Lazaro Became a Baggage Carrier
There is no position, no science or art a man does not have to
apply all his intelligence to if he wants to perfect his
knowledge of it. Suppose a cobbler has been working at his job
for thirty years. Tell him to make you a pair of shoes that are
wide at the toe, high at the instep, with laces.
Will he make them? Before you get a pair the way you asked him,
your feet will be shriveled. Ask a philosopher why a fly's stool
comes out black when it's on a white object and white when it's
on something black. He'll turn as red as a maiden who is caught
doing it by candlelight, and he won't know what to answer. Or if
he does answer this question, he won't be able to answer a
hundred other tomfooleries.
Near the town of Illescas, I ran into a fellow who I knew was an
archpicaro by the way he looked. I went up to him the way I
would to an oracle to ask him how I should act in this new life
of mine so I wouldn't be arrested. He said that if I wanted to
keep free of the law I should combine Mary's idleness with
Martha's work. In other words, if I was going to be a picaro I
should also be a kitchenhelper, a brothel servant, a
slaughterhouse boy, or a baggage carrier, which was a way of
covering up for the picaresque life. Furthermore, he said that
because he hadn't done this, even after the twenty years he'd
been following his profession, they had just yesterday whipped
him up one side and down the other for being a tramp.
I thanked him for the warning and took his advice. When I got to
Madrid I bought a porter's strap and stood in the middle of the
square, happier than a cat with gibblets. As luck would have it,
the first person to put me to work was a maiden (God forgive my
lie) about eighteen years old, but more primped up than a novice
in a convent. She told me to follow her. She took me down so
many streets that I thought she was getting paid for walking or
was playing a trick on me. After a while we came to a house that
I recognized as one of ill repute when I saw the side door, the
patio, and the beastly old maids dancing there.
We went into her cell, and she asked me if I wanted her to pay me
for my work before we left. I told her I would wait until we got
to the place where I was taking the bundle. I loaded it on my
back and started down the road to the Guadalajara gate. She told
me to put it in a carriage to go to the Nagera fair. The load
was light since it was mainly made up of mortars, cosmetics, and
perfume bottles. On the way I found out that she had been in
that profession for eight years.
"The first one to prick me," she said, "was the Father Rector at
Seville, where I'm from, and he did it with such devotion that
from that day to this I'm very devoted to them. He put me in the
charge of a holy woman, and she provided me with everything I
needed for more than six months. Then a captain took me from
there. And since that time I've been led from pillar to post
until here I am, like this. I wish to God I had never left that
good father who treated me like a daughter and loved me like his
sister. Anyway, I've had to work just to be able to eat."
At this time we came up to a carriage that was about to leave. I
put the things I was carrying in it and asked her to pay me for
my work. The chatterbox said she would be glad to, and she
hauled off and hit me so hard she knocked me to the ground.
Then she said, "Are you so stupid that you ask someone of my
profession for money? Didn't I tell you before we left the brothel
that I would give you satisfaction there for your work if you wanted?"
She jumped into the carriage like a nag and spurred the horses
away, leaving me feeling the sting. So there I sat, like a
jackass, not sure what had happened to me. I thought that if
that job finished as well as it was starting out, I would be rich
by the end of the year.
I hadn't even left there when another carriage arrived from
Alcala de Henares. The people inside jumped down: they were all
whores, students, and friars. One of them belonged to the
Franciscan order, and he asked me if I would like to carry his
bundle to his monastery. I told him I would be glad to because I
saw that he certainly wouldn't trick me the way the whore had
done. I loaded it onto my back, and it was so heavy I could
barely carry it, but I thought of the payment I would get, and
that gave me strength. When we reached the monastery I was very
tired because it had been so far. The friar took his bundle and
said, "May heaven reward you," and then he closed the door behind
him.
I waited for him to come back out and pay me, but when I saw how
long he was taking, I knocked on the door. The gatekeeper came
out and asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted to be paid
for carrying the bundle I'd brought. He told me to go away, that
they didn't pay anything there. As he closed the door he told
me not to knock again because it was the hour for meditations,
and if I did he would whip me thoroughly. I stood there,
stupified. A poor man--one of those who were standing inside the
vestibule--said to me, "Brother, you might as well go away.
These fathers never have any money. They live on what other
people give them."
"They can live on whatever they want to, but they'll pay me or
I'm not Lazaro of Tormes."
I began to knock again very angrily. The lay brother came out
even angrier, and without saying so much as, how do you do? he
knocked me to the ground like a ripe pear, and holding me down,
he kicked me a good half-dozen times, then pounded me just as
much, and left me flattened out as if the clocktower of Saragossa
had fallen on top of me.
I lay there, stretched out, for more than a half-hour without
being able to get up. I thought about my bad luck and that the
strength of that irregular clergyman had been used so badly. He
would have been better off serving under His Highness, the King,
than living from alms for the poor--although they aren't even
good for that since they're so lazy. The Emperor, Charles V,
pointed this out when the General of the Franciscans offered him
twenty-two-thousand friars, who wouldn't be over forty or under
twenty-two years old, to fight in the war. The invincible
Emperor answered that he didn't want them because he would have
needed twenty-two-thousand pots stew every day to keep them
alive, implying that they were more fit for eating than working.
God forgive me, but from that day to this I've hated those
clergymen so much that whenever I see them they look to me like
lazy drones or sieves that lift the meat out of the stew and
leave the broth. I wanted to leave that work, but first I waited
there that night, stretched out like a corpse waiting for his
funeral.
X. What Happened to Lazaro with an Old Bawd
Feeling faint and dying from hunger, I went up the street very
slowly, and as I passed by the Plaza of Cebada I ran into an old
devout woman with fangs longer than a wild boar. She came up to
me and asked if I wanted to carry a trunk to the house of a
friend of hers, saying that it wasn't far away and that she would
give me forty coppers. When I heard that, I praised God to hear
such sweet words coming from such a foul-smelling mouth as hers:
she would give me forty coppers! I told her I would, with
pleasure--but my real pleasure was being able to grab onto those
forty coppers rather than to carry anything, since I was more in
a condition to be carried than to carry. I loaded the trunk on
my back, but it was so big and heavy I could barely lift it. The
good old woman told me to handle it carefully because inside were
some perfume bottles that she prized highly. I told her not to
worry because I would walk very slowly. (And even if I had
wanted to I couldn't have done anything else: I was so hungry I
could barely waddle.)
We reached the house we were taking the chest to. They were very
happy to get it, especially a young maiden, plump and dimpled (I
was wishing that after I'd eaten a good meal and was in bed, the
lice there looked like her): she smiled happily and said she
wanted the trunk in her dressing room. I took it there: the old
lady gave her the key and told her to keep it until she got back
from Segovia. She said she was going there to visit a relative
of hers, and she thought she would be back in four days. She
gave the girl a hug before she left and whispered a few words in
her ear that turned the maiden as red as a rose. And although I
thought that was nice, I would have thought it was nicer if I had
had plenty to eat. She said good-by to everyone in the house,
and asked the girl's father and mother to forgive her for being
so bold. They told her she was welcome there anytime. She gave
me forty coppers and whispered in my ear to come back to her
house the next morning and I would earn forty more.
I went away, happier than a bride in June. I spent thirty
coppers on supper, and kept ten to pay for a room. I thought
about the power of money. As soon as that old woman gave me the
forty coppers I found myself lighter than the wind, more valiant
than Roland, and stronger than Hercules. Oh, money, it is not
without reason that most men consider you their God. You are the
cause of all good, and the root of all evil. You are the
inventor of the arts and the one who keeps them excellent.
Because of you some maidens remain pure and other maidens give up
their purity. Finally, there is no difficulty in the world
difficult for you, no hidden place that you do not penetrate, no
mountain you do not level, no humble hill you do not raise up.
The next morning I went to the old lady's house the way she asked
me. She told me to go back with her and pick up the trunk she
had left the day before. She told the people at the house that
she had come back for it because when she was about a mile from
Madrid, on the way to Segovia, she had met her relative who had
had the same idea she did and was coming to visit her, and that
she had to have it now because there were clean linens in it that
she needed for her relative's room. The plumpish girl gave her
back the key, kissing and hugging her more eagerly than the first
time; and after she had whispered to her again, they helped me
load the trunk on my back, and it seemed to me lighter than the
day before because my belly was fuller.
As I went down the stairs I stumbled over something that the
Devil must have put there. I tripped and fell with the baggage,
and as I rolled down to the bottom of the stairs where the
parents of the innocent girl were waiting, I broke both my nose
and my ribs. With the knocks that damned chest got, it opened
up, and inside there appeared a dashing young man with sword and
dagger at his side. He was dressed in traveling clothes, without
a cloak. His trousers and jacket were of green satin, and in his
hat he wore a feather of the same color. He had on red garters
with pearl-white stockings and white sandals. He stood up very
elegantly, and making a deep bow he walked right out the door.
Everyone stood there agape at the sudden vision, and they looked
at each other like wooden puppets.
When they came out of their trance, they quickly called two of
their sons and told them what had happened. With a great outcry
the sons grabbed their swords, and shouted, "Kill him, kill him!"
They ran out looking for that dandy, but since he had left in a
hurry, they weren't able to catch up with him.
The parents had stayed behind in the house, and they closed the
door and went to take revenge on the bawd. But she had heard the
noise and knew what the cause of it was, and she went out a back
door with the eternal bride-to-be right behind her. So the
parents found themselves totally taken in. They came back down
to take their revenge out on me, and I was all crippled up,
unable to move. If it hadn't been for that, I would have been
right behind that fellow who had caused all my damage. The
brothers came in sweating and panting, vowing and swearing that
since they hadn't caught that wretch, they would kill their
sister and the go-between. But when they were told they had
gotten away by the back door, there was swearing and cursing
everywhere.
One of them said, "If only the Devil himself were here right now
with all his hellish throng: I would polish them off like flies.
Come on, you devils, come on! But what am I calling you for? I
know that where you are, you're so afraid of my temper you
wouldn't dare show yourselves here. If I'd seen that coward, I
would only have had to breathe hard on him, and he would have
blown so far away you'd never hear of him again."
The other one said, "If I had caught up with him, I wouldn't have
left a piece of him bigger than his ear. But if he's to be found
anywhere in this world--or even if he's not--he won't escape my
hands. I'll get him even if he hides in the center of the
earth."
They kept on with these boasts and other empty threats, and poor
Lazaro was expecting all those heavy clouds to unload on him.
But he was more afraid of the ten or twelve little boys there
than of those braggers. Everyone, old and young, attacked me in
a fury: some kicked me, others hit me with their fists; some
pulled my hair, others boxed my ears. My fear hadn't been in
vain because the girls stuck long penny needles into me, and that
made me cry out at the top of my lungs. The family slaves
pinched me until I saw stars.
Some of them said, "Let's kill him."
Others said, "Better yet, let's throw him in the privy."
The clamor was so great it sounded like they were pulverizing
chaff, or that they were hammers in a fulling mill that weren't
letting up. When they saw that I was out of breath, they stopped
beating me, but they didn't stop threatening me. Since the
father was more mature, or more rotten, he told them to leave me
alone, and he said that if I would tell the truth about who had
robbed him of his honor, they wouldn't hurt me any more. I
couldn't do what he asked because I didn't know who the fellow
was: I had never even seen him before he'd come out of the
casket. Since I didn't say anything, they started in again. And
there I was groaning, crying over my bad luck, sighing, and
cursing my misfortune since it was always finding new ways to
persecute me. I was finally able to tell them to stop and I
would tell them the facts of the matter. They did, and I told
them to the letter what had happened, but they wouldn't believe
the truth.
Seeing that the storm wasn't letting up, I decided to outwit them
if I could, and so I promised to show them the villain. They
stopped hammering on me and offered me wonders. They asked me
what his name was and where he lived. I told them I didn't know
his name, much less that of the street he lived on, but if they
wanted to carry me (it was impossible for me to go on foot
because of the way they had beaten me), I would show them his
house. They were delighted, and they gave me a little wine, so
that I recovered my spirits a bit. Then they gathered all their
weapons, and two of them picked me up under the arms like a
French lady and carried me through the streets of Madrid.
The people who saw me said, "They're taking that man to jail."
And others said, "No, it's to the hospital."
And none of them were right. I was confused and stunned. I
didn't know what to do or what to say. Because if I cried for
help, they would complain about me to the law, and I was more
afraid of that than death. It was impossible for me to run away,
not only because of the beating they had given me, but because I
was surrounded by the father, sons, and relatives--eight or nine
of them had gotten together for the enterprise. They were
walking along, like Saint George, armed to the teeth.
We crossed streets and passed by alleys without my knowing where
I was or where I was taking them. We reached the Sol Gate, and I
saw a gallant young fellow coming up one of the streets that led
to it, prancing on tiptoe, his cape under his arm, with a huge
glove in one hand and a carnation in the other, swinging his arms
like he was the first cousin of the Duke of Infantado. He was
moving his hands and swaying back and forth. I recognized him
immediately: it was my master, the squire, who had stolen my
clothes in Murcia. I don't doubt for a minute but that some
saint put him there for me (because there wasn't one left in the
litany that I hadn't called on). When I saw opportunity
knocking, I grabbed it by the head and decided to kill two birds
with one stone--taking vengeance on that bragger and freeing
myself from those hangmen.
So I said to them, "Look! That libertine who stole your honor is
coming this way, and he's changed his clothes."
They were blind with rage, and without further ado they asked me
which one he was. I pointed him out. They fell on him, and
grabbing him by the collar, they threw him to the ground and
kicked, trampled, and clouted him. One of the boys, a brother of
the girl, wanted to run him through with his sword, but his
father stopped him and called the law officers over, and they put
shackles on the squire. When I saw all the turmoil and everyone
busy, I made myself scarce and hid as well as I could.
My good squire had recognized me, and thinking that those were
relatives of mine demanding my clothes back, he said, "Let me go,
let me go! I'll pay you enough for two suits of clothes!"
But they stopped up his mouth with their fists. Bleeding, his
head pounded in, and beaten to a pulp, they took him off to jail
while I left Madrid, damning my job and whoever had invented it.
XI. How Lazaro Left for His Homeland and What Happened to Him on
the Way
I wanted to be on my way, but my strength wasn't equal to my
intentions, and so I stayed in Madrid for a few days. I didn't
get along badly there because I used a pair of crutches--since I
couldn't walk without them--and I begged from door to door and
from convent to convent until I had enough strength to set out.
I was quick to do it because of what I heard a beggar tell who
was sitting in the sun with some others, picking off fleas.
It was the story of the trunk I've just told about, but the
beggar added that the man they put in jail, thinking he was the
one who had been inside the chest, had proved it wasn't him.
Because at the time it had all happened he was in his room; and
none of his neighbors had ever seen him wearing any other clothes
than the ones he had on when they arrested him. But even at
that, they had still paraded him through the streets for being a
vagabond, and had banished him from Madrid. The beggar also told
how that man and the maiden's relatives were looking for a
baggage carrier, who had contrived the whole business, and they
swore that the first one who found him would run him through
until he looked like a sieve.
When I heard that, I was all eyes, and I put a patch over one of
them. Then I shaved off my beard like a mock priest, and the way
I looked then, I was sure that not even the mother who bore me
would have recognized me. I left Madrid, intending to go to
Tejares to see whether fortune would disown me if I went back to
the mold. I passed by the Escorial, a building that reflects the
greatness of the monarch who was having it built (it wasn't
finished yet) and so much so that it can be counted among the
wonders of the world, although you can't say it is a very
pleasant place to have it built at, since the land is barren and
mountainous. But the summer air is so nice that all you have to
do is sit in the shade and you won't be bothered by the heat or
the cold, and the air is very healthy.
Less than three miles from there I met a band of gypsies who had
set up camp in an old country house. When they saw me from a
distance they thought I was one of them because my clothes seemed
to promise no less; but when I got close they saw they were
mistaken. They shunned me a little because, as I saw, they were
holding a conference or debate on thievery. They told me that
wasn't the road to Salamanca but to Valladolid. Since my
business didn't force me to go to one place instead of any
other, I told them that if that's the way it was, I wanted to see
that city before I went back to my own town.
One of the oldest men there asked me where I was from, and when I
told him Tejares, he invited me to eat with them because we were
almost neighbors: he was from Salamanca. I accepted, and
afterwards they asked me to tell about myself and my life. I did
(they didn't have to ask me twice), with the fewest and shortest
words that such great things allowed. When I came to the part
about the barrel and what happened to me at the innkeeper's place
in Madrid, they burst into laughter, especially a man and woman
gypsy who nearly split their sides. I began to feel ashamed, and
my face turned red.
The gypsy who was my neighbor saw me blushing, and he said,
"Don't be ashamed, brother. These people aren't laughing at you;
your life is more deserving of admiration than laughter. And
since you have told us so much about yourself, it is only right
that we should repay you the same way. We will put our trust in
you just as you have trusted us. And if the people here will
allow me, I will tell you the reason for their laughter."
Everyone told him to go ahead because they knew he was discreet
and experienced enough not to let things go too far.
"For your information, then," he continued, "those people who are
laughing over there are the maiden and the priest who jumped _in
puribus_ when the deluge from your barrel nearly flooded them.
If they want to they can tell you how the turns of fortune have
brought them to their present state."
The brand new gypsy girl asked them to let her do it, capturing
the benevolence of the illustrious audience, and so, with a
sonorous, peaceful, and grave voice, she told her story.
"The day I left, or leaped (to be more accurate), from my
father's house and they took me off to prison, they put me in a
room that was darker than it was clean and that reeked more than
it was decorated. Father Urbez, who is here and won't let me
lie, was put in jail until he told them he was a priest. Then
they immediately gave him over to the bishop, who scolded him
severely for having let himself be overcome by a drop in the
ocean and for having caused such a scandal. But when he promised
to be more careful and watch himself so that not even the ground
would know of his comings and goings, they let him loose and told
him not to say mass for a month.
"I stayed in the warden's charge, and since he was a young,
handsome fellow and I was not a bad-looking girl, he took special
care of me. For me, jail was a palace--a garden of pleasures.
My parents were indignant at my looseness but did what they
could so I could get loose. But it was useless: the warden
arranged things so I wouldn't escape his hands. Meanwhile the
priest, who is here with us, was walking around the prison like
an Irish setter, trying to get to talk to me. He was able to do
it by means of a third party who was first in the bawdry
business. She dressed him up like one of her maids, in a skirt
and blouse, then she put a muffler over his beard, as if he had a
toothache. At this interview my escape was planned.