The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes
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.]