his pocket: this one a partridge, that one a hen; one took out a
rabbit, another one a couple of pigeons; this one a little
mutton, that one a piece of loin; and someone brought out sausage
or blackpudding. One of them even took out a pie worth a silver
piece, wrapped up in his handkerchief. They gave it to the cook,
and in the meantime they were frolicking around with the ladies,
romping with them like donkeys in a new field of rye. It isn't
right for me to tell what happened there or for the reader to
even imagine it.
After these rituals there came the victuals. The ladies ate the
_Aves_, and the young men drank the _ite misa est_. Everything
left on the table the ladies wrapped in their handkerchiefs and
put in their pockets. Then the men pulled the dessert out of
theirs: some, apples; others, cheese; some, olives; and one of
them, who was the cock of the walk and the one who was fooling
with the tailor's wife, brought out a half-pound of candied
fruit. I really liked that way of keeping your meal so close,
in case you need it. And I decided right then that I would put
three or four pockets on the first pair of pants God would give
me, and one of them would be of good leather, sewn up well enough
to pour soup into. Because if those gentlemen who were so rich
and important brought everything in their pockets and the ladies
carried things that were cooked in theirs, I--who was only a
whore's squire--could do it, too.
We servants went to eat, and there wasn't a damned thing left for
us but soup and bread sops, and I was amazed to see that those
ladies hadn't stuck that up their sleeves. We had barely begun
when we heard a tremendous uproar in the hall where our masters
were: they were referring to their mothers and discussing what
sort of men their fathers had been. They left off talking and
started swinging, and since variety is necessary in everything,
there was hitting, slapping, pinching, kicking, and biting. They
were grabbing one another's hair and pulling it out; they pounded
each other so much you would think they were village boys in a
religious procession. As far as I could find out, the quarrel
broke out because some of the men didn't want to give or pay those
women anything: they said that what the women had eaten was enough.
It happened that some law officers were coming up the street, and
they heard the noise and knocked on the door and called out,
"Open up, in the name of the law!"
When they heard this, some of the people inside ran one way, and
others another way. Some left behind their cloaks, and others
their swords, one left her shoes, another her veil. So they all
disappeared, and each one hid as best he could. I had no reason
to run away, so I stood there, and since I was the doorman, I
opened the door so they wouldn't accuse me of resisting the law.
The first officer who came in grabbed me by the collar and said I
was under arrest. When they had me in their hands, they locked
the door and went looking for the people who had been making all
the noise. There was no bedroom, dressing room, basement, wine
cellar, attic, or privy they didn't look in.
Since the officers didn't find anyone, they took my statement. I
confessed from A to Z about everyone at the gathering and what
they had done. The officers were amazed, since there were as
many as I'd said, that not one of them had turned up. To tell
the truth, I was amazed, too, because there had been twelve men
and six women. Simple as I was, I told them (and I really
believed it) that I thought all the people who had been there and
made that noise were goblins. They laughed at me, and the
constable asked his men who had been to the wine cellar if they'd
looked everywhere carefully. They said they had, but not
satisfied with this, he made them light a torch, and when they
went in the door they saw a cask rolling around. The officers
were terrified, and they started to run away, crying, "For God's
sake, that fellow was right; there are nothing but spooks here!"
The constable was shrewder, and he stopped the officers, saying
he wasn't afraid of the Devil himself. Then he went over to the
cask and took off the lid, and inside he found a man and a woman.
I don't want to tell how he found them so I won't offend the pure
ears of the wholesome, high-minded reader. I will only say that
the violence of their movements had made the cask roll around and
was the cause of their misfortune and of showing in public what
they were doing in private.
The officers pulled them out: he looked like Cupid with his
arrow, and she like Venus with her quiver. Both of them were as
naked as the day they were born because, when the officers had
knocked, they were in bed, kissing the holy relics, and with the
alarm they didn't have a chance to pick up their clothes. And,
to hide, they had climbed into that empty cask, where they
continued their devout exercise.
Everyone stood there, agape at the beauty of these two. Then
they threw two cloaks over them and put them in the custody of
two officers, and they started looking for the others. The
constable discovered a large earthen jug filled with oil, and
inside he found a man fully dressed and up to his chest in the
oil. As soon as they saw him he tried to jump out, but he didn't
do it so agilely that the jug and he both didn't tip over. The
oil flew out and covered the officers from head to foot, staining
them without any respect. They stood there cursing the job and
the whore who taught it to them. The oiled man saw that instead
of grabbing him they were avoiding him like the plague, and he
began to run away.
The constable shouted, "Stop him! Stop him!" But they all made
room for him to go past. He went out a back door, pissing oil.
What he wrung from his clothes he used to light the lamp of Our
Lady of Afflictions for more than a month.
The law officers stood there, bathed in oil, and cursing whoever
had brought them to the place. And so was I, because they said I
was the pander and they were going to tar and feather me. They
went out like fritters from the frying pan, leaving a trail
wherever they walked. They were so irate that they swore to God
and to the four holy Gospels that they would hang everyone they
found. We prisoners trembled. They went over to the storeroom
to look for the others. They went in, and from the top of a door
a bag of flour was poured down on them, blinding them all.
They shouted, "Stop, in the name of the law!"
If they tried to open their eyes, they were immediately closed up
with flour and water. The men holding us let go so they could
help the constable who was yelling like a madman. They had
hardly gotten inside when their eyes were covered with flour and
water, too. They were wandering around like they were playing
blindman's bluff, bumping into and clouting each other so much
they broke their jaws and teeth.
When we saw that the officers were done in, we threw ourselves on
them, and they attacked each other so wildly that they fell,
exhausted, to the floor while blows and kicks rained and hailed
down on top of them. Finally, they didn't shout or move any
more than dead men. If one of them tried to open his mouth, it
was immediately filled with flour and stuffed like a capon at a
poultry farm. We bound their hands and feet and carried them
along like hogs to the wine cellar. We threw them in the oil
like fish to be fried, and they squirmed around like pigs in a
mire. Then we locked up the doors, and we all went home.
The owner of that one had been in the country, and when he came
back he found the doors locked and that no one answered when he
called. A niece of his had loaned out his house for that feast,
and she had gone back to her father's, afraid of what her uncle
would do. The man had the doors unlocked, and when he saw his
house sown with flour and anointed with oil, he flew into a rage
and began shouting like a drunkard. He went to the wine cellar
and found his oil spilled all over and the law officers wallowing
in it. He was so angry to see his home devastated that he picked
up a cudgel and hammered away on the constable and the officers,
leaving them half dead. He called his neighbors over, and they
helped drag them out to the street, and there boys threw mud,
garbage, and filth on the officers and the constable. They were
so full of flour no one recognized them. When they came to and
found themselves in the street, free, they took to their heels.
Then people could very well have said, "Stop the name of the law-
-it's running away!"
They left behind their cloaks, swords, and daggers and didn't
dare go back for them so that no one would find out what had
happened.
The owner of the house kept everything that was left behind as
compensation for the damage that had been done. When I came out,
ready to leave, I found a cloak that wasn't at all bad, and I
took it and left mine there. I thanked God I had come out ahead
this time (something new for me), since I was always getting the
short end of things. I went to the house of the tailor's wife.
I found the house in an uproar, and the tailor, her husband, was
thrashing her with a stick for having come back alone without her
veil or shoes and for running down the street with more than a
hundred boys after her. I got there at just the right time
because, as soon as the tailor saw me, he left his wife and
sailed into me with a blow that finished off the few teeth I
still had. Then he kicked me ten or twelve times in the belly,
and that made me throw up what little I had eaten.
"You damned pimp!" he cried. "You mean you're not ashamed to
come back to my house? I'll give you enough payment to settle
every score--past and present."
He called his servants, and they brought a blanket and tossed me
in it to their own pleasure, which was my grief. They left me
for dead and laid me out on a bench like that. It was nighttime
when I recovered my senses, and I tried to get up and walk. But
I fell to the ground and broke an arm. The next morning I made
my way to the door of a church, little by little, and there I
begged with a pitiful voice from the people going in.
XV. How Lazaro Became a Hermit
Stretched out at the door of the church and reviewing my past
life, I thought over the misery I had gone through from the day I
began to serve the blind man down to the present. And I came to
the conclusion that even if a man always rises early, that
doesn't make dawn come any earlier, and if you work hard, that
won't necessarily make you rich. And there's a saying that goes
like this: "The early riser fails where God's help succeeds." I
put myself in His hands so that the end would be better than the
beginning and the middle had been.
A venerable, white-bearded hermit was next to me with his staff
and a rosary in his hand, and at the end of the rosary hung a
skull the size of a rabbit's.
When the good Father saw me in such misery he began to console me
with kind, soft words, and he asked me where I was from and what
had happened to bring me to such a pitiful state. I told him
very briefly the long process of my bitter pilgrimage.
He was astonished by what I said and showed his pity on me
by inviting me to his hermitage. I accepted the invitation,
and as well as I could (which wasn't painlessly) I reached the
oratory with him, a few miles from there, in the side of a hill.
Attached to it was a little house with a bedroom and a bed. In
the patio was a cistern with fresh water, and it was used to
water a garden--neater and better cared for than it was large.
"I have been living here," said the good old man, "for twenty
years, apart from the commotion and anxiety of man. This,
brother, is earthly paradise. Here I contemplate both divine and
human matters. Here I fast when I am well fed, and I eat when I
am hungry. Here I stay awake when I can't sleep, and I sleep
when I grow tired. Here I have solitude when no one is with me,
and I have company when I am not alone. Here I sing when I am
happy, and I cry when I am sad. Here I work when I'm not idle,
and I am idle when I don't work. Here I think about my past bad
life, and I contemplate the good one I have now. And, finally,
here nothing is known, and the knowledge of all things is
attained."
I rejoiced in my heart to listen to the cunning hermit, and I
begged him to tell me about hermit life, since it seemed to be
the best in the world.
"What do you mean, the best?" he answered. "Only a person who
has enjoyed it can know how good it really is. But we don't have
time to speak further of this because it's time to have dinner."
I begged him to heal my arm because it hurt very much. He did it
so easily that from then on it never bothered me. We ate like
kings and drank like Germans. After the meal was over, and while
we were taking an afternoon nap, my good hermit began to shout,
"I'm dying! I'm dying!"
I got up and saw that he looked like he was about to breathe his
last. And I asked him if he really was dying.
"Yes, yes, yes!" he answered.
And still repeating "yes," he died an hour later.
But at the time he told me that, I was very upset. I realized
that if the man died without witnesses, people might say I had
killed him, and it would cost me the life I had kept up with such
hard work. And it wouldn't take very weighty witnesses for that
because I looked more like a robber than an honest man. I
immediately ran out of the hermitage to see if anyone was around
who could be a witness to the old man's death. I looked
everywhere and saw a flock of sheep nearby. I quickly (although
painfully because of the beating I had gotten in the tailor
skirmish) went toward it. I found six or seven shepherds and
four or five shepherdesses resting in the shade of some willows,
next to a shining, clear spring. The men were playing
instruments and the women were singing. Some were capering,
others were dancing. One of the men was holding a woman's hand,
another was resting with his head on a woman's lap. And they
were spending the heat of the day wooing each other with sweet
words.
I ran up to them, terrified, and begged them to come with me
right away because the old hermit was dying. Some of them came
along while others stayed behind to watch over the sheep. They
went into the hermitage and asked the good hermit if he was
approaching death. He said, "Yes" (but that was a lie because he
wasn't going anywhere: it was death that was approaching him, and
against his will). When I saw that he was still in his rut about
saying yes, I asked him if he wanted those shepherds to be
witnesses for his last will and testament. He answered, "Yes."
I asked him if he was leaving me as his sole and lawful heir. He
said, "Yes." I went on, asking if he acknowledged and confessed
that everything he possessed or might possess he was leaving to
me for services and other things he had received from me. Again
he said, "Yes."
I was wishing that would be the last noise he'd make, but I saw
that he still had a little breath left in him, and, so that he
wouldn't do me any harm with it, I went on with my questions and
had one of the shepherds write down everything he said. The
shepherd wrote on a wall with a piece of coal since we didn't
have an inkwell or a pen.
I asked him if he wanted that shepherd to sign for him
since he was in no position to do it himself, and he died,
saying, "Yes, yes, yes."
We went ahead and buried him: we dug a grave in his
garden (and did it all very quickly because I was afraid he might
come back to life). I invited the shepherds to have something to
eat; they didn't want to because it was time to feed their sheep.
They went away, giving me their condolences.
I locked the door of the hermitage and walked all around the
inside. I found a huge jug of good wine, another one full of
oil, and two crocks of honey. He had two sides of bacon, a good
quantity of jerked beef, and some dried fruit. I liked all of
this very much, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I found
his chests full of linens, and in the corner of one of them was a
woman's dress. This surprised me, but what surprised me even
more was that such a well-provided man wouldn't have any money.
I went to the grave to ask him where he had put it.
It seemed to me that after I had asked him he answered: "You
stupid fellow. Do you think that living out here in the country
the way I do, at the mercy of thieves and bandits, I would keep
it in a coffer where I'd be in danger of losing what I loved
more than my own life?"
It was as if I had really heard this inspiration from his mouth,
and it made me look around in every corner. But when I didn't
find anything, I thought: If I were going to hide money here so
no one else could find it, where would I put it? And I said to
myself: In that altar. I went over to it and took the frontpiece
of the altar off the pedestal, which was made of mud and clay.
On one side I saw a crack that a silver coin could fit into. My
blood started humming, and my heart began to flutter. I picked
up a spade, and in less than two clouts I had half the altar on
the ground, and I discovered the relics that were buried there.
I found a jar full of coins. I counted them, and there were six
hundred silver pieces. I was so overjoyed at the discovery that
I thought I would die. I took the money out of there and dug a
hole outside the hermitage where I buried it so that if they
turned me out of there I would have what I loved most outside.
When this was done I put on the hermit's garb and went into town
to tell the prior of the brotherhood what had happened. But
first I didn't forget to put the altar back the way it had been
before. I found all the members of the brotherhood that the
hermitage depended on together there. The hermitage was
dedicated to Saint Lazarus, and I thought that was a good sign
for me. The members saw that I was already gray-haired and of an
exemplary appearance, which is the most important part of
positions like this. There was, however, one difficulty, and
that was that I didn't have a beard. I had sheared it off such a
short time before that it hadn't yet sprung back. But even with
this, seeing by the shepherds' story that the dead man had left
me as his heir, they turned the hermitage over to me.
About this business of beards, I remember what a friar
told me once: In his order, and even in the most reformed orders,
they wouldn't make anyone a Superior unless he had a good beard.
So it happened that some of them who were very capable of being
in that position were excluded, and others who were woolly were
given the position (as if good administration depended on hair
and not on mature, capable understanding).
They warned me to live with the virtuous character and good
reputation my predecessor had had, which was so great that
everyone thought him a saint. I promised them I would live like
a Hercules. They advised me to beg for alms only on Tuesdays and
Saturdays because if I did it any other day the friars would
punish me. I promised to do whatever they ordered me, and I
especially didn't want to make enemies of them because I had
previously experienced the taste of their hands. I began to beg
for alms from door to door, with a low, humble, devout tone, the
way I had learned in the blind man's school. I didn't do this
because I was in need, but because it's the beggar's character
that the more they have the more they ask for and the more
pleasure they get from doing it. The people who heard me
calling, "Alms for the candles of Saint Lazarus," and didn't
recognize my voice, came out their doors and were astonished when
they saw me. They asked me where Father Anselmo was (that was
the name of the good old fellow). I told them he had died.
Some said, "May he rest in peace, he was such a good man
Others said, "His soul is in the glory of God."
And some, "God bless the man whose life was like his: he ate
nothing warm for six years."
And others, "He lived on bread and water."
Some of the foolish pious women got down on their knees and
called on the name of Father Anselmo. One asked me what I had
done with his garb. I told her I was wearing it. She took out
some scissors, and without saying what she wanted she began to
cut a piece from the first part she found, which was the crotch.
When I saw her going after that part, I started to shout because
I thought she was trying to castrate me.
When she saw how upset I was, she said, "Don't worry, brother. I
want some relics from that blessed man, and I'll pay you for the
damage to your robe."
"Oh," some said, "before six months are up they are certain to
canonize him because he's performed so many miracles."
So many people came to see his grave that the house was always full,
so I had to move the grave out to a shelter in front of the hermitage.
From then on I didn't beg alms for the candles of Saint Lazarus,
but for the blessed Father Anselmo. I have never understood this
business of begging alms to light the candles of saints. But I
don't want to continue on this note because it will sound bad. I
wasn't at all interested in going to the city because I had
everything I wanted at the hermitage. But, so no one could say I
was rich and that's why I didn't go out begging alms, I went the
next day, and there something happened to me that you'll find out
if you read:
XVI. How Lazaro Decided to Marry Again
Good fortune has more value than horse or mule; for an unlucky
man a sow will bear mongrels. Many times we see men rise from
the dust of the earth, and without knowing how, they find
themselves rich, honored, feared, and held in esteem. If you
ask: Is this man wise? They'll tell you: Like a mule. Is he
discreet? Like an ass. Does he have any good qualities? Those
of a dunce. Well, how did he become so wealthy? They'll answer:
It was the work of fortune.
Other people, on the contrary, who are discreet, wise, prudent,
with many good qualities, capable of ruling a kingdom, find
themselves beaten down, cast aside, poor, and made into a rag for
the whole world. If you ask why, they'll tell you misfortune is
always following them.
And I think it was misfortune that was always pursuing and
persecuting me, giving the world a sample and example of what it
could do. Because since the world was made there has never been
a man attacked so much by this damned fortune as I was.
I was going down a street, begging alms for Saint Lazarus as
usual, because in the city I didn't beg for the blessed Anselmo--
that was only for the naive and ignorant who came to touch the
rosary at his grave, where they said many miracles took place. I
went up to a door, and giving my usual cry I heard some people
call me from a stairway, "Why don't you come up, Father? Come
on, come on, what are you doing, staying down there?"
I started to climb the stairs, which were a little dark, and
halfway up some women clasped me about the neck; others held onto
my hands and stuck theirs in my pockets And since we were in the
dark, when one of the women reached for my pocket she hit upon my
locket.
She gave a cry, and said, 'What's this?"
I answered, "A little bird that will come out if you touch it."
They all asked why they hadn't seen me for a week. When we
reached the top of the stairs they saw me in the light from the
windows, and they stood there looking at each other like wooden
puppets. Then they burst out laughing and laughed so hard I
wondered if they would ever stop. None of them could talk. The
first to speak was a little boy who said, "That isn't Daddy."
After those bursts of laughter had subsided a little, the women
(there were four of them) asked me what saint I was begging alms
for. I told them for Saint Lazarus.
"Why are you begging for him?" they asked. "Isn't Father Anselmo
feeling well?"
"Well?" I answered. "He doesn't feel bad at all because a week
ago he died."
When they heard that, they burst into tears, and if the laughter
had been loud before, their wailing was even louder. Some of
them screamed, others pulled their hair, and with all of them
carrying on together, their music was as grating as a choir of
hoarse nuns.
One of them said, "What will I do. Oh, me! Here I am without a
husband, without protection, without consolation. Where will I
go? Who will help me? What bitter news! What a misfortune!"
Another was lamenting with these words: "Oh, my son-in-law and my
lord! How could you leave without saying good-by? Oh, my little
grandchildren, now you are orphans, abandoned! Where is your
good father?"
The children were carrying the soprano of that unharmonious
music. They were all crying and shouting, and there was nothing
but weeping and wailing. When the water of that great deluge let
up a little they asked me how and what he had died from. I told
them about it and about the will he had made, leaving me as his
lawful heir and successor. And then it all started. The tears
turned into rage, their wails into curses, and their sighs into
threats.
"You're a thief, and you killed him to rob him, but you won't get
away with it," said the youngest girl. "That hermit was my
husband, and these three children are his, and if you don't give
us all his property, we'll have you hanged. And if the law
doesn't do it there are swords and daggers to kill you a thousand
times if you had a thousand lives."