The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes
street. Then I went back into the house, and in the time that it would
take to say a _credo_ I had run all over it without finding anything.
I made the hard bed, took up the jug and went with it to the river.
There I saw my master in great request with two fair ladies in a
garden. There were other ladies, for many think it fashionable to go
and refresh themselves on summer mornings by those pleasant banks. In
confidence that they will be well received, several gentlemen of the
place also frequent the river-side. As I have said, my master was among
them, saying the sweetest things that Ovid ever wrote. They had no
shame in asking him to pay for their breakfasts, but he, finding that
he was as cold in the purse as he was empty in the stomach, began to
have that feeling which robs the face of its colour, and to make not
very valid excuses. When they saw his infirmity, they went to those who
were not suffering from it. I was breaking my fast with some stalks of
vegetables with great diligence, and not seeing any more of my master I
went back to the house.
I thought of sweeping some part of it, which was very necessary, but I
could find nothing with which to do it; so I set myself to think what
I should do next. [Sidenote: Lazaro waits long for his master to bring
food, but he never came.] I thought I would wait for my master until
noon. When he came he might by good luck bring something for us to eat.
But there was no such experience for me. It was two o’clock, my master
had not come, and I was desperately hungry. So I shut the door, put the
key where I was told, and gave all my attention to my own necessities.
[Sidenote: Lazaro’s successful begging expedition.]
With a low and feeble voice, and my hands in my bosom, the good God
before my eyes, and my tongue repeating His Name, I began to pray for
bread at the largest houses and doors I came upon. As this method was
sucked in with my mother’s milk, or I should say that I learnt it from
that great master of it, the blind man, so good a disciple was I that,
although in this city little is known of charity, nor had it been an
abundant year, I made such a good haul that, before the clock struck
four, I had several pounds of bread inside me, and two loaves up my
sleeve and in my bosom. I returned to the house, and, in passing a
tripe-shop, I begged of one of the shopwomen, who gave me a piece of a
cow’s foot and several pieces of boiled tripe.
When I got back to the house my good master was already there. The
cloak was folded and put on the bench, and he was pacing up and down.
He came up to me, and I thought he was going to scold me for being
late. He asked me where I had been, and I said, “Sir! I was here until
it struck two. But when I saw that you were not coming, I went over
the city, to commend myself to the kind people, and they have given me
what you see.” I showed him the bread and the tripe, which I carried in
the end of my skirt. At this he seemed well pleased and said, “Well, I
waited for you to eat, and when you did not come I ate what there
was, but you have done well in this, for it is better to beg in the
name of God than to steal. He helps me as He sees fit. [Sidenote: What
touches the esquire’s honour.] I merely charge you that people must not
be told that you live with me, for it touches my honour; though I well
believe that it will be kept secret, because very few people know me
here.”
“Do not be troubled about that, sir,” I replied to him, “for cursed be
he who asks the question, and myself if I tell him anything. No, we
shall soon be free from want. When I saw that nothing good came into
this house I went out. Surely the ground must be bad, or there must be
unlucky houses which bring ill-luck to those who live in them.” “This
one must be so without doubt,” he replied. “I promise you that after a
month I will not stay in it, even if it is given me as my own.”
I sat down at the end of the bench, and, that he might not take me
for a glutton, I said nothing about the meal. I began supper, and to
bite my bread and tripe. [Sidenote: The esquire longs for a share of
Lazaro’s supper.] Looking stealthily I saw that my unhappy master could
not take his eyes off my skirt, which served as a plate. May God have
as much pity for me as I had for him! I could feel what he felt, and
have been feeling so every day. I thought whether it would be right
for me to invite him to share, for as he had told me that he had dined,
he might decline the invitation. Finally, I asked that sinner to help
me in my work, and to break his fast as he did the day before. He had a
better chance, the food being better and my hunger less. It pleased God
to comply with my wish, and I even think with his. For as he passed,
in walking up and down, he came to me and said: “I assure you, Lazaro,
that you have the best grace in eating that I ever saw in any one, and
that no one can see you doing it, without having a longing to eat, even
when he had no such longing before.” “The great longing that you have
makes you think my way of eating so beautiful,” I said to myself, “and
causes your wish to help me.”
[Sidenote: Lazaro’s courtesy, tact, and kindness.]
He longed to join me, and I opened a way by saying, “Sir, the good
tools make the good craftsman. This bread is delicious, and this cow’s
foot is so well cooked and seasoned that there is no one that would
not be drawn to it by the smell alone.” “Cow’s foot, is it?” he said.
“Yes, sir!” “I tell you that is the best mouthful in the world, there
is not even a pheasant that is so good.” “Try it, sir!” said I, “and
see whether it is as good as you think.” [Sidenote: Lazaro generously
provides his master with a supper.] I put on one side the cow’s foot
and three or four pieces of bread, and he sat down by my side, and
began to eat as if he would like to devour every little bone. “This
wonderful food is like a hotch-potch,” he said. “You eat with the best
kind of sauce,” I replied. “Before God,” said he, “if I had known I
would not have eaten a mouthful all day.” “Thus the good years avenge
me,” I said to myself. He asked me for the jug of water, and I gave
it to him just as I had brought it. My master had not over-eaten, and
it is a sign of this that there was no want of water. We both drank,
and went to bed in the same way as the night before, well contented.
To avoid prolixity I may say that the same thing went on for the next
eight or ten days.
In the mornings my master went out to take the air in the streets with
the same satisfied look, leaving poor Lazaro with the head of a wolf. I
often reflected on my misfortune that, escaping from the evil masters I
had served, and seeking to better myself, I should have found one who
not only did not maintain me, but whom I had to support. With all that
I liked him well enough, seeing that he could not do better. My feeling
was rather of sorrow than of enmity. Often I fared ill in bringing to
the house that with which he might be satisfied.
[Sidenote: Lazaro examines the esquire’s clothes, and finds nothing.]
One morning the sad esquire got out of bed in his shirt and went up
to the roof of the house. I quickly searched the hose and doublet at
the head of the bed, and found a small purse of velvet, but there had
not been so much as a blanca in it for many a day. “This man,” I said
to myself, “is really poor, and cannot give what he has not got. The
avaricious blind man and the ill-conditioned clergyman, may God reward
them both! nearly killed me with hunger, the one with a kiss on the
hand, the other with a deceitful tongue. Those it is right for me to
detest, but for this poor man to have a tender feeling.” God is my
witness that even now when I meet with any one dressed like this, and
walking with the same pompous air, it makes me sad to think that he
might be suffering what I saw my poor master suffer. [Sidenote: Lazaro
has a kindly feeling for his third master.] With all his poverty I
liked serving him; but not the other two masters. I only felt some
discontent, for I should have liked him not to be quite so proud, and
to have lowered his pretensions just a little when his necessities were
so great. But it seems to me that it is a well-established rule among
such people to march with their caps well cocked, though they have not
a blanca to their names. The Lord have mercy on those who have to die
of this disease!
[Sidenote: Begging prohibited.]
I was in this condition, passing the life I have described, when my
ill-luck again began to pursue me. In that land the year was one which
only yielded a bad harvest, so the municipal authorities resolved that
all mendicants should leave the town; with the addition that any who
remained after four days should be punished by whipping. Then the law
took effect, and there were processions of poor people being whipped
down the four streets.
This so frightened me that I did not dare to transgress by begging.
So you may imagine the abstinence of our house, and the sadness and
silence of its inmates. We were two or three days without eating a
mouthful or speaking a word. [Sidenote: Lazaro is kept alive by some
kind shop-girls.] Some young women, sewers of cotton who made caps
and lived near us, kept me alive, for I had made friends with them.
From the little they had, they gave me enough to keep body and soul
together. I was not so unhappy for myself as for my forlorn master,
who in eight days never ate a mouthful, at least in the house. I do
not know where he went or what he had to eat when he went out. I used
to see him come back at noon, walking along the street with dignified
carriage, thinner than a greyhound of good breed, and with regard to
what touched the nonsense he called honour, he brought a straw of
which we had not enough in the house. [Sidenote: Master and boy in a
miserable and starving condition.] Coming to the door he would grind
his teeth with nothing between them, complaining all the time of his
bad lodging and saying: “It is a bad thing to see, and a most unlucky
place to have to live in, and while we have to be here it will always
be wretchedly sad. We have got to endure it, but I wish that this month
was over, so that we might leave it.”
[Sidenote: The esquire brings home a real, but bemoans his fate.]
Being in this miserable and starving condition, one day, I know not
through what good-fortune or chance, my poor master became possessed of
a real. He came to the house with it, as delighted as if he had got all
the riches of Venice, and smiling at me with a very joyous expression,
he said: “Take it, Lazaro, for God has at length begun to open His
hand. Go to the market for bread, meat, and wine, for we will break the
Devil’s eye. I would further have you to know that I have taken another
house, and that we shall not have to be in this wretched one for more
than another month. May it be accursed, and he who placed the first
tile to build it! O Lord! how have I lived here! Scarcely a drop of
wine have I drunk nor a morsel of bread have I eaten, nor have I ever
had any rest here, and it looks so sad and forbidding. Go and return
quickly, for to-day we will eat like counts.”
I took the jug and the real, and giving speed to my feet, I began to
run up the street to the market, very joyful and contented. But of what
avail if evil fortune always brought anxiety with my joy. So it was on
this occasion.
As I ran up the street I was calculating how I could spend the money
to the best advantage and most profitably, giving thanks to God that
my master had got something to spend. [Sidenote: Terror of Lazaro,
thinking they were bringing a dead body to his house.] Suddenly I met