The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes, Parts One and Two

R >> Robert Rudder >> The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes, Parts One and Two

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Of course not; a craving for glory is what makes him expose
himself to danger. And the same is true in arts and letters.
The young preacher gives a very good sermon and is really
interested in the improvement of people's souls, but ask his
grace if he minds when they tell him, "Oh, what an excellent
sermon you gave today, Reverend!" And So-and-so was terrible in
jousting today, but when some rascal praised him for the way he
had handled his weapons, he gave him his armor. What would he
have done if it had really been true?

And so everything goes: I confess that I'm no more saintly than
my neighbors, but I would not mind it at all if those people who
find some pleasure in this little trifle of mine (written in my
crude style) would get wrapped up in it and be entertained by
it, and if they could see that a man who has had so much bad luck
and so many misfortunes and troubles does exist.

Please take this poor effort from a person who would have liked
to make it richer if only his ability had been as great as his
desire. And since you told me that you wanted me to write down
all the details of the matter, I have decided not to start out
in the middle but at the beginning. That way you will have a
complete picture of me, and at the same time those people who
received a large inheritance will see how little they had to do
with it, since fortune favored them, and they will also see how
much more those people accomplished whose luck was going against
them, since they rowed hard and well and brought their ship
safely into port.

I. Lazaro Tells about His Life and His Parents

You should know first of all that I'm called Lazaro of Tormes,
and that I'm the son of Tome Gonzales and Antona Perez, who were
born in Tejares, a village near Salamanca. I was actually born
in the Tormes River, and that's how I got my name. It happened
this way: My father (God rest his soul) was in charge of a mill
on the bank of that river, and he was the miller there for more
than fifteen years. Well, one night while my mother was in the
mill, carrying me around in her belly, she went into labor and
gave birth to me right there. So I can really say I was born in
the river.

Then when I was eight years old, they accused my father of
gutting the sacks that people were bringing to the mill. They
took him to jail, and without a word of protest he went ahead and
confessed everything, and he suffered persecution for
righteousness' sake. But I trust God that he's in heaven because
the Bible calls that kind of man blessed. At that time they were
getting together an expedition to go fight the Moors, and my
father went with them. They had exiled him because of the bad
luck that I've already told about, so he went along as a muleteer
for one of the men, and like a loyal servant, he ended his life
with his master.

My widowed mother, finding herself without a husband or anyone to
take care of her, decided to lie at the side--I mean, stay on the
side--of good men and be like them. So she came to the city to live.
She rented a little house and began to cook for some students.
She washed clothes for some stableboys who served the Commander
of La Magdalena, too, so a lot of the time she was around the stables.
She and a dark man--one of those men who took care of the animals--
got to know each other. Sometimes he would come to our house and
wouldn't leave till the next morning; and other times he would come
to our door in the daytime pretending that he wanted to buy eggs,
and then he would come inside.

When he first began to come I didn't like him, he scared me
because of the color of his skin and the way he looked. But when
I saw that with him around there the food got better, I began to
like him quite a lot. He always brought bread and pieces of meat,
and in the winter he brought in firewood so we could keep warm.

So with his visits and the relationship going right along, it
happened that my mother gave me a pretty little black baby, and I
used to bounce it on my knee and help keep it warm.

I remember one time when my black stepfather was playing with the
little fellow, the child noticed that my mother and I were white
but that my stepfather wasn't and he got scared. He ran to my
mother and pointed his finger at him and said, "Mama, it's the
bogeyman!" And my stepfather laughed: "You little son-of-a-bitch!"

Even though I was still a young boy, I thought about the word my
little brother had used, and I said to myself: How many people
there must be in the world who run away from others when they
don't see themselves.

As luck would have it, talk about Zaide (that was my stepfather's
name) reached the ears of the foreman, and when a search was made
they found out that he'd been stealing about half of the barley
that was supposed to be given to the animals. He'd pretended
that the bran, wool, currycombs, aprons, and the horse covers and
blankets had been lost; and when there was nothing else left to
steal, he took the shoes right off the horses' hooves. And he
was using all this to buy things for my mother so that she could
bring up my little brother.

Why should we be surprised at priests when they steal from the
poor or at friars when they take things from their monasteries to
give to their lady followers, or for other things, when we see
how love can make a poor slave do what he did?

And they found him guilty of everything I've said and more
because they asked me questions and threatened me too, and I
answered them like a child. I was so frightened that I told them
everything I knew--even about some horseshoes my mother
had made me sell to a blacksmith.

They beat and tarred my poor stepfather, and they gave my mother
a stiff sentence besides the usual hundred lashes: they said that
she couldn't go into the house of the Commander (the one I mentioned)
and that she couldn't take poor Zaide into her own house.

So that matters wouldn't get any worse, the poor woman went ahead
and carried out the sentence. And to avoid any danger and get
away from wagging tongues, she went to work as a servant for the
people who were living at the Solano Inn then. And there, while
putting up with all kinds of indignities, she managed to raise my
little brother until he knew how to walk. And she even raised me
to be a good little boy who would take wine and candles to the
guests and do whatever else they told me.

About this time a blind man came by and stayed at the inn. He
thought I would be a good guide for him, so he asked my mother if
I could serve him, and she said I could. She told him what a
good man my father had been and how he'd died in the battle of
Gelves for the holy faith. She said she trusted God that I
wouldn't turn out any worse a man than my father, and she begged
him to be good to me and look after me, since I would be an
orphan now. He told her he would and said that I wouldn't be a
servant to him, but a son. And so I began to serve and guide my
new old master.

After he had been in Salamanca a few days, my master wasn't happy
with the amount of money he was taking in, and he decided to go
somewhere else. So when we were ready to leave, I went to see my
mother. And with both of us crying she gave me her blessing and
said, "Son, I know that I'll never see you again. Try to be
good, and may God be your guide. I've raised you and given you
to a good master; take good care of yourself."

And then I went back out to my master who was waiting for me.

We left Salamanca and we came to a bridge; and at the edge of
this bridge there's a stone statue of an animal that looks
something like a bull. The blind man told me to go up next to
the animal, and when I was there he said, "Lazaro, put your ear
up next to this bull and you'll hear a great sound inside of it."

I put my ear next to it very simply, thinking he was telling the
truth. And when he felt my head near the statue, he doubled up
his fist and knocked my head into that devil of a bull so hard
that I felt the pain from its horns for three days. And he said
to me, "You fool, now learn that a blind man's servant has to be
one step ahead of the devil." And he laughed out loud at his joke.

It seemed to me that at that very instant I woke up from my
childlike simplicity and I said to myself, "He's right. I've got
to open my eyes and be on my guard. I'm alone now, and I've got
to think about taking care of myself."

We started on our way again, and in just a few days he taught me
the slang thieves use. When he saw what a quick mind I had he
was really happy, and he said, "I can't give you any gold or
silver, but I can give you plenty of hints on how to stay
alive." And that's exactly what he did; after God, it was this
fellow who gave me life and who, although he was blind,
enlightened me and showed me how to live.

I like to tell you these silly things to show what virtue there
is in men being able to raise themselves up from the depths, and
what a vice it is for them to let themselves slip down from
high stations.

Well, getting back to my dear blind man and telling about his
ways, you should know that from the time God created the world
there's no one He made smarter or sharper than that man. At his
job he was sly as a fox. He knew over a hundred prayers by
heart. He would use a low tone, calm and very sonorous, that
would make the church where he was praying echo. And whenever he
prayed, he would put on a humble and pious expression--something
he did very well. And he wouldn't make faces or grimaces with
his mouth or eyes the way others do.

Besides this he had thousands of other ways of getting money. He
told everyone that he knew prayers for lots of different things:
for women who couldn't have children or who were in labor; for
those women who weren't happy in their marriage--so that their
husbands would love them more. He would give predictions to
expectant mothers about whether they would have a boy or a girl.
And as far as medicine was concerned, he said that Galen never
knew the half of what he did about toothaches, fainting spells,
and female illnesses. In fact, there was no one who would tell
him they were sick that he couldn't immediately say to them: "Do
this, and then is; take this herb, or take that root."

And so everyone came to him--especially women--and they believed
everything he told
them. He got a lot out of them with these ways I've been telling
about; in fact, he earned more in a month than a hundred ordinary
blind men earn in a year.

But I want you to know, too, that even with all he got and all
that he had, I've never seen a more greedy, miserly man. He was
starving me to death. He didn't even give me enough to keep me
alive! I'm telling the truth: If I hadn't known how to help
myself with my wily ways and some pretty clever tricks, I would
have died of hunger lots of times. But with all his know-how and
carefulness I outwitted him, so that I always--or usually--really
got the better of him. The way I did this was I played some
devilish tricks on him, and I'll tell about some of them, even
though I didn't come out on top every time.

He carried the bread and all the other things in a cloth bag, and
he kept the neck of it closed with an iron ring that had a
padlock and key. And when he put things in or took them out, he
did it so carefully and counted everything so well that no one
in the world could have gotten a crumb from him. So I'd take
what little he gave me, and in less than two mouthfuls it would
be gone.

After he had closed the lock and forgotten about it, thinking
that I was busy with other things, I would begin to bleed the
miserly bag dry. There was a little seam on the side of the bag
that I'd rip open and sew up again. And I would take out bread--
not little crumbs, either, but big hunks--and I'd get bacon and
sausage too. And so I was always looking for the right time to
score, not on a ball field, but on the food in that blasted bag
that the tyrant of a blind man kept away from me.

And then, every time I had a chance I'd steal half copper coins.
And when someone gave him a copper to say a prayer for them--and
since he couldn't see--they'd no sooner have offered it than I
would pop it into my mouth and have a half-copper ready. And as
soon as he stuck out his hand, there was my coin reduced to half
price. Then the old blind man would start growling at me. As
soon as he felt it and realized that it wasn't a whole copper
he'd say, "How the devil is it that now that you're with me they
never give me anything but half coppers, when they almost always
used to give me a copper or a two-copper piece? I'd swear that
this is all your fault."

He used to cut his prayers short, too; he wouldn't even get
halfway through them. He told me to pull on the end of his cloak
whenever the person who asked for the prayer had gone. So that's
what I did. Then he'd begin to call out again with his cry, "Who
would like to have me say a prayer for him?" in his usual way.

And he always put a little jug of wine next to him when we ate.
I would grab it quickly and give it a couple of quiet kisses
before I put it back in its place. But that didn't go on for
very long: he could tell by the number of nips he took that some
was missing. So to keep his wine safe he never let the jug out
of reach; he'd always hold on to the handle. But not even a
magnet could attract the way I could with a long rye straw that I
had made for that very purpose. And I'd stick it in the mouth of
the jug and suck until--good-bye, wine! But the old traitor was
so wary that I think he must have sensed me, because from then on
he stopped that and put the jug between his legs. And even then
he kept his hand over the top to make sure.

But I got so used to drinking wine that I was dying for it. And
when I saw that my straw trick wouldn't work, I decided to make a
spout by carving a little hole in the bottom of the jug and then
sealing it off neatly with a little thin strip of wax. When it
was mealtime, I'd pretend I was cold and get in between the legs
of the miserable blind man to warm up by the little fire we had.
And the heat of it would melt the wax, since it was such a tiny
piece. Then the wine would begin to trickle from the spout into
my mouth, and I got into a position so that I wouldn't miss a
blasted drop.

When the poor fellow went to drink he wouldn't find a thing.
He'd draw back, astonished, then he'd curse and damn the jar and
the wine, not knowing what could have happened.

"You can't say that I drank it, Sir," I said, "since you never
let it out of your hand."

But he kept turning the jug around and feeling it, until he
finally discovered the hole and saw through my trick. But he
pretended that he hadn't found out.

Then one day I was tippling on my jug as usual, without realizing
what was in store for me or even that the blind man had found me
out. I was sitting the same as always, taking in those sweet
sips, my face turned toward the sky and my eyes slightly closed
so I could really savor the delicious liquor. The dirty blind
man saw that now was the time to take out his revenge on me, and
he raised that sweet and bitter jug with both his hands and
smashed it down on my mouth with all his might. As I say, he
used all his strength, and poor Lazaro hadn't been expecting
anything like this; in fact, I was drowsy and happy as always.
So it seemed like the sky and everything in it had really fallen
down on top of me. The little tap sent me reeling and knocked me
unconscious, and that enormous jug was so huge that pieces of it
stuck in my face, cutting me in several places and knocking out
my teeth, so that I don't have them to this very day.

From that minute I began to hate that old blind man.
Because, even though he took care of me and treated me all right
and fixed me up, I saw that he had really enjoyed his dirty
trick. He used wine to wash the places where the pieces of the
jug had cut me, and he smiled and said, "How about that, Lazaro?
The very thing that hurt you is helping to cure you." And he
made other witty remarks that I didn't particularly care for.

When I had about recovered from the beating and the black and
blue marks were nearly gone, I realized that with a few more
blows like that the blind man would have gotten rid of me. So I
decided to be rid of him. But I didn't run away right then; I
waited until I could do it in a safer and better way. And
although I wanted to be kind and forgive the blind man for
hitting me with the jug, I couldn't because of the harsh
treatment he gave me from then on. Without any reason he would
hit me on the head and yank on my hair. And if anyone asked him
why he beat me so much, he would tell them about the incident
with the jug: "Do you think this boy of mine is just some
innocent little fellow? Well, listen and see if you think the
devil himself would try anything like this."

After they'd heard about it, they would cross themselves and say,
"Well--who would ever think that such a little boy would do
anything like that!"

Then they'd laugh at the prank and tell him, "Go on, beat him.
God will give you your reward."

And this advice he followed to the letter.

So, for revenge, I'd lead him down all the worst roads on purpose
to see if he wouldn't get hurt somehow. If there were rocks, I'd
take him right over them; if there was mud, I'd lead him through
the deepest part. Because even though I didn't keep dry myself,
I would have given an eye if I could have hurt two eyes of that
man who didn't even have one. Because of this, he was always
beating me with the end of his cane so that my head was full of
bumps, and with him always pulling on my hair a lot of it was
gone. I told him I wasn't doing it on purpose and that I just
couldn't find any better roads, but that didn't do any good. The
old traitor saw through everything and was so wary that he
wouldn't believe me any more.

So that you can see how smart this shrewd blind man was, I'll
tell you about one of the many times when I was with him that he
really seemed to show a lot of perception.

When we left Salamanca, his plan was to go to Toledo because the
people were supposed to be richer there, although not very free
with their money. But he pinned his hopes on this saying:
"You'll get more water from a narrow flowing stream than you will
from a deep dry well." And we'd pass through the best places as
we went along. Where we were welcomed and were able to get
something, we stayed; where this didn't happen, we'd move on
after a few days.

And it happened that as we were coming to a place called Almorox
when they were gathering the grapes, a grape picker gave him a
bunch as alms. And since the baskets are usually handled pretty
roughly and the grapes were very ripe at the time, the bunch
started to fall apart in his hand. If we had thrown it in the
sack, it and everything it touched would have spoiled. He
decided that we'd have a picnic so that it wouldn't go to waste--
and he did it to please me, too, since he'd kicked and beat me
quite a bit that day. So we sat down on a low wall, and he said:
"Now I want to be generous with you: we'll share this bunch of
grapes, and you can eat as many as I do. We'll divide it like
this: you take one, then I'll take one. But you have to promise
me that you won't take more than one at a time. I'll do the same
until we finish, and that way there won't be any cheating."

The agreement was made, and we began. But on his second turn,
the traitor changed his mind and began to take two at a time,
evidently thinking that I was doing the same. But when I saw
that he had broken our agreement, I wasn't satisfied with going
at his rate of speed. Instead, I went even further: I took two
at a time, or three at a time--in fact, I ate them as fast as I
could. And when there weren't any grapes left, he just sat there
for a while with the stem in his hand, and then he shook his head
and said, "Lazaro, you tricked me. I'll swear to God that you
ate these grapes three at a time."

"No, I didn't," I said. "But why do you think so?"

That wise old blind man answered, "Do you know how I see that you
ate them three at a time? Because I was eating them two at a
time, and you didn't say a word."

I laughed to myself, and even though I was only a boy, I was very
much aware of the sharpness of that blind man.

But, so that I won't talk too much, I won't tell about a lot of
humorous and interesting things that happened to me with my first
master. I just want to tell about how we separated, and be done
with him.

We were in Escalona, a town owned by the duke of that name, at an
inn, and the blind man gave me a piece of sausage to roast for
him. When the sausage had been basted and he had sopped up and
eaten the drippings with a piece of bread, he took a coin out of
his purse and told me to go get him some wine from the tavern.
Then the devil put an idea in my head, just like they say he does
to thieves. It so happened that near the fire there was a little
turnip, kind of long and beat up; it had probably been thrown
there because it wasn't good enough for stew.

At that moment he and I were there all alone, and when I whiffed
the delicious odor of the sausage, I suddenly got a huge
appetite--and I knew that all I would get of it
would be the smell. But the thought of eating that sausage made
me lose all my fear: I didn't think for a minute what would
happen to me. So while the blind man was getting the money out
of his purse, I took the sausage off the spit and quickly put
the turnip on. Then the blind man gave me the money for the wine
and took hold of the spit, turning it over the fire, trying to
cook the very thing that hadn't been cooked before because it was
so bad.

I went for the wine, and on the way I downed the sausage. When I
came back I found that sinner of a blind man holding the turnip
between two slices of bread. He didn't know what it was yet,
because he hadn't felt of it. But when he took the bread and
bit into it, thinking he would get part of the sausage too, he
was suddenly stopped cold by the taste of the cold turnip. He
got mad then, and said, "What is this, Lazarillo?"

"You mean, 'Lacerated,'" I said. "Are you trying to pin
something on me? Didn't I just come back from getting the wine?
Someone must have been here and played a joke on you."

"Oh, no," he said. "I haven't let the spit out of my hand. No
one could have done that."

I kept swearing that I hadn't done any switching around. But it
didn't do me any good--I couldn't hide anything from the
sharpness of that miserable blind man. He got up and grabbed me
by the head and got close so he could smell me. And he must
have smelled my breath like a good hound. Really being anxious
to find out if he was right, he held on tight and opened my mouth
wider than he should have. Then, not very wisely, he stuck in
his nose. And it was long and sharp. And his anger had made it
swell a bit, so that the point of it hit me in the throat. So
with all this and my being really frightened, along with the fact
that the black sausage hadn't had time to settle in my stomach,
and especially with the sudden poking in of his very large nose,
half choking me--all these things went together and made the
crime and the snack show themselves, and the owner got back what
belonged to him. What happened was that before the blind man
could take his beak out of my mouth, my stomach got so upset that
it hit his nose with what I had stolen. So his nose and the
black, half-chewed sausage both left my mouth at the same time.

Oh, Almighty God! I was wishing I'd been buried at that very
moment, because I was already dead. The perverse blind man was
so mad that if people hadn't come at the noise, I think he would
have killed me. They pulled me out of his hands, and he was left
with what few hairs had still been in my head. My face was all
scratched up, and my neck and throat were clawed. But my throat
really deserved its rough treatment because it was only on
account of what it had done that I'd been beaten. Then that
rotten blind man told everyone there about the things I'd done,
and he told them over and over about the jug and the grapes and
this last incident.

They laughed so hard that all the people who were going by in the
street came in to see the fun. But the blind man told them about
my tricks with such wit and cleverness that, even though I was
hurt and crying, I felt that it would have been wrong for me not
to laugh too.

And while this was going on I suddenly remembered that I'd been
negligent and cowardly, and I began to swear at myself: I should
have bitten off his nose. I'd had the opportunity to do it; in
fact, half of the work had already been done for me. If only I'd
clamped down with my teeth, I'd have had it trapped. Even though
it belonged to that skunk, my stomach would probably have held it
better than it held the sausage; and since there wouldn't have
been any evidence, I could have denied the crime. I wish to God
I'd have done it. It wouldn't have been a bad idea at all!

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