So I thanked my friends for their good wishes, and with a great deal of clapping on the shoulders and sadness, I said goodbye to them. And I know that if I hadn't been married I would never have left their company because they were the salt of the earth and the kind of people that were really to my liking. The life they lead is a pleasant one. They aren't conceited or presumptuous; they have no hesitation or dislike for going into any wine cellar, with their hats off if the wine deserves it. They are simple, honest people, and they always have so much that I hope God gives me no less when I'm really thirsty. But the love I had for my wife and my land ("The land you are born in, . . ." as they say) held me back. So I stayed in this city, and although I was well known by the people who lived here, I missed the pleasure of my friends and the court. Still, I was happy, and even happier when my family line was extended by the birth of a beautiful little girl that my wife had then. And although I was a little suspicious, she swore to me that the child was mine. But then fortune thought it had forgotten me long enough, and it decided to show me its cruel, angry, harsh face once more and disturb these few years of good, peaceful living by bringing others of affliction and bitterness. Oh, almighty God! Who could write about such a terrible misfortune and such a disastrous fall without letting the inkwell rest and wiping his eyes with the quill? THE SECOND PART OF THE LIFE OF LAZARILLO OF TORMES Juan de Luna SECOND PART OF THE LIFE OF L A Z A R I L L O OF TORMES Drawn Out Of The Old Chronicles Of Toledo By J. DE LUNA, Castilian and Interpreter of the Spanish Language Dedicated to the Most Illustrious Princess HENRIETTE DE ROHAN In PARIS In the House of ROLET BOUTONNE, in the Palace, in the Gallery of the Prisoners; Near the Chancery M. DC. XX. By Grant of the King LETTER OF DEDICATION TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCESS HENRIETTE DE ROHAN MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND EXCELLENT PRINCESS. It is common among all writers to dedicate their works to someone who may shelter those works with their authority and defend them with their power. Having decided to bring to light the Second Part of the life of the great Lazaro of Tormes, a mirror and standard of Spanish sobriety, I have dedicated and do dedicate it to Your Excellency, whose authority and power may shelter this poor work (poor, since it treats of Lazaro) and to prevent its being torn apart and abused by biting, gossiping tongues which with their infernal wrath attempt to wound and stain the most sincere and simple wills. I confess my boldness in dedicating such a small work to such a great princess; but its sparseness brings its own excuse—which is the necessity for greater and more effective shelter—and the kindness of Your Excellency, the pardon. So I humbly beseech Your Excellency to take this small service, putting your eyes on the desire of him who offers it, which is and will be to use my life and strength in your service. Of whom I am a very humble servant, J. DE LUNA TO THE READER The reason, dear reader, that the Second Part of Lazarillo of Tormes is going into print is that a little book has come into my hands that touches on his life but has not one word of truth in it. Most of it tells how Lazaro fell into the sea, where he changed into a fish called a tuna. He lived in the sea for many years and married another tuna, and they had children who were fishes like their father and mother. It also tells about the wars of the tuna, in which Lazaro was the captain, and about other foolishness both ridiculous and erroneous, stupid and with no basis in truth. The person who wrote it undoubtedly wanted to relate a foolish dream or a dreamed-up foolishness. This book, I repeat, was the prime motivation for my bringing to light this Second Part, exactly as I saw it written in some notebooks in the rogues' archives in Toledo, without adding or subtracting anything. And it is in conformity with what I heard my grandmother and my aunts tell, and on which I was weaned, by the fireside on cold winter nights. And as further evidence, they and the other neighbors would often argue over how Lazaro could have stayed under water so long (as my Second Part relates) without drowning. Some said he could have done it, others said he could not: those who said he could cited Lazaro himself, who says the water could not go into him because his stomach was full all the way up to his mouth. One good old man who knew how to swim, and who wanted to prove that it was feasible, interposed his authority and said he had seen a man who went swimming in the Tagus, and who dived and went into some caverns where he stayed from the time the sun went down until it came up again, and he found his way out by the sun's glow; and when all his friends and relatives had grown tired of weeping over him and looking for his body to give him a burial, he came out safe and sound. The other difficulty they saw about his life was that nobody recognized that Lazaro was a man, and everyone who saw him took him for a fish. A good canon (who, since he was a very old man, spent all day in the sun with the weavers) answered that this was even more possible basing his statement on the opinion of many ancient and modern writers, including Pliny, Phaedo, Aristotle, and Albertus Magnus, who testify that in the sea there are some fish of which the males are called Tritons, and the females Nereids, and they are all called mermen: from the waist up they look exactly like men, and from the waist down they are like fish. And I say that even if this opinion were not held by such well-qualified writers, the license that the fishermen had from the Inquisitors would be a sufficient excuse for the ignorance of the Spanish people, because it would be a matter for the Inquisition if they doubted something that their lordships had consented to be shown as such. About this point (even though it lies outside of what I am dealing with now) I will tell of something that occurred to a farmer from my region. It happened that an Inquisitor sent for him, to ask for some of his pears, which he had been told were absolutely delicious. The poor country fellow didn't know what his lordship wanted of him, and it weighed so heavily on him that he fell ill until a friend of his told him what was wanted. He jumped out of bed, ran to his garden, pulled up the tree by the roots, and sent it along with the fruit, saying that he didn't want anything at his house that would make his lordship send for him again. People are so afraid of them—and not only laborers and the lower classes, but lords and grandees—that they all tremble more than leaves on trees when a soft, gentle breeze is blowing, when they hear these names: Inquisitor, Inquisition. This is what I have wanted to inform the reader about so that he can answer when such questions are aired in his presence, and also I beg him to think of me as the chronicler and not the author of this work, which he can spend an hour of his time with. If he enjoys it, let him wait for the Third Part about the death and testament of Lazarillo, which is the best of all. And if not, I have nevertheless done my best. Vale. I. Where Lazaro Tells about How He Left Toledo to Go to the War of Algiers "A prosperous man who acts unwisely should not be angry when misfortune comes." I'm writing this epigram for a reason: I never had the mentality or the ability to keep myself in a good position when fortune had put me there. Change was a fundamental part of my life that remained with me both in good, prosperous times and in bad, disastrous ones. As it was, I was living as good a life as any patriarch ever had, eating more than a friar who has been invited out to dinner, drinking more than a thirsty quack doctor, better dressed than a priest, and in my pocket were two dozen pieces of silver—more reliable than a beggar in Madrid. My house was as well stocked as a beehive filled with honey, my daughter was born with the odor of saintliness about her, and I had a job that even a pew opener in the church at Toledo would have envied. Then I heard about the fleet making ready to sail for Algiers. The news intrigued me, and like a good son I decided to follow in the footsteps of my good father Tome Gonzalez (may he rest in peace). I wanted to be an example—a model—for posterity. I didn't want to be remembered for leading that crafty blind man, or for nibbling on the bread of the stingy priest, or for serving that penniless squire, or even for calling out other people's crimes. The kind of example I wanted to be was one who would show those blind Moors the error of their ways, tear open and sink those arrogant pirate ships, serve under a valiant captain who belonged to the Order of Saint John (and I did enlist with a man like that as his valet, with the condition that everything I took from the Moors I would be able to keep, and it turned out that way). Finally, what I wanted to do was to be a model for shouting at and rousing the troops with our war cry: "Saint James be with us…. Attack, Spaniards!" I said good-by to my adoring wife and my dear daughter. My daughter begged me not to forget to bring her back a nice Moorish boy, and my wife told me to be sure to send, by the first messenger, a slave girl to wait on her and some Barbary gold to console her while I was gone. I asked my lord the archpriest's permission, and I put my wife and daughter in his charge so he would take care of them and provide for them. He promised me he would treat them as his very own. I left Toledo happy, proud, and content, full of high hopes—the way men are when they go to war. With me were a great number of friends and neighbors who were going on the same expedition, hoping to better their fortunes. We arrived at Murcia with the intention of going to Cartagena to embark. And there something happened me that I had no desire for. I saw that fortune had put me at the top of its whimsical wheel and with its usual swiftness had pushed me to the heights of worldly prosperity, and now it was beginning to throw me down to the very bottom. It happened that when I went to an inn, I saw a half-man who, with all the loose and knotted threads hanging from his clothes, had more the appearance of an old goat than a man. His hat was pulled down so far you couldn't see his face, his cheek was resting on his hand, and one leg was lying on his sword, which was in a half scabbard made of strips of cloth. He had his hat cocked jauntily over one ear (there was no crown on it, so all the hot air coming out of his head could evaporate). His jacket was cut in the French style—so slashed there wasn't a piece big enough to wrap a mustard seed in. His shirt was skin: you could see it through the lattice work of his clothes. His pants were the same material. As for his stockings, one was green and the other red, and they barely covered his ankles. His shoes were in the barefoot style: worn both up and down. By a feather sewn in his hat, the way soldiers dressed, I suspected that he was, in fact, a soldier. With this thought in mind, I asked him where he was from and where he was going. He raised his eyes to see who was asking, and we both recognized each other: it was the squire I had served under at Toledo. I was astonished to see him in that suit. When the squire saw my look of amazement, he said: "I'm not surprised to see how startled you are to see me this way, but you won't be when I tell you what happened to me from that day I left you in Toledo until today. As I was going back to the house with the change from the doubloon to pay my creditors, I came across a veiled woman who pulled at my cloak and, sighing and sobbing, pleaded with me to help her out of the plight she was in. I begged her to tell me her troubles, saying that it would take her longer to tell them than for me to take care of them. Still crying, and with a maidenly blush, she told me that the favor I could do for her (and she prayed that I would do it) was to go with her to Madrid where, according to what people had told her, the man was staying who had not only dishonored her but had taken all her jewelry without fulfilling his promise to marry her. She said that if I would do this for her, she would do for me what a grateful woman should. I consoled her as best I could, raising her hopes by telling her that if her enemy were to be found anywhere in this world, she would be avenged. "Well, to make a long story short, we went straight to the capital, and I paid her expenses all the way. The lady knew exactly where she was going, and she led me to a regiment of soldiers who gave her an enthusiastic welcome and took her to the captain, and there she signed up as a 'nurse' for the men. Then she turned to me, and with a brazen look said, 'All right, fathead. Now push off!' When I saw that she had tricked me, I flew into a rage, and I told her that if she were a man instead of a woman I would tear her heart out by the roots. One of the soldiers standing there came up and thumbed his nose at me, but he didn't dare to strike me because if he had they would have had to bury him on the spot. 'When I saw how badly that business was turning out, I left without saying another word, but I walked out a little faster than usual to see if any brawny soldier was going to follow me so that I could kill him. Because if I had fought that first little soldier boy and killed him (which I would have done, without any doubt), what honor or glory would there have been in it for me? But if the captain or some bully had come out, I would have sliced more holes in them than there are grains of sand in the sea. When I saw that none of them dared to follow me, I left, very pleased with myself. I looked around for work, and since I couldn't find any good enough for a man of my station, here I am like this. It is true that I could have been a valet or an escort to five or six seamstresses, but I would starve to death before I'd take a job like that." My good master finished by telling me that, since he hadn't been able to find any merchants from his home town to lend him money, he was penniless, and he didn't know where he was going to spend the night. I caught his hint and offered to let him share my bed and my supper. He called my hand. When we were ready to go to sleep, I told him to take his clothes off the bed because it was too small for so many varmints. The next morning, wanting to get up without making any noise, I reached for my clothes—in vain. The traitor had taken them and vanished. I lay in bed, thinking I was going to die from pure misery. And it might have been better if I had died because I could have avoided all those times I was in agony later. I started shouting, "Thief! Thief!" The people in the house came up and found me naked as a jaybird, looking in every corner of the room for something to cover myself with. They all laughed like fools, while I was swearing like a mule driver. I damned to hell that thieving bragger who had kept me up half the night telling about all the splendor of himself and his ancestors. The remedy that I took (since no one was giving me any) was to see if I could use that hot-air merchant's clothes until God furnished me with some others. But they were a labyrinth, with no beginning or end to them. There was no difference between the pants and the jacket. I put my legs in the sleeves and used the pants as a coat, and I didn't forget the stockings: they looked more like a court clerk's sleeves—loose enough to put his bribes in. The shoes were like fetters around my ankles: they didn't have any soles. I pulled the hat down over my head, putting the bottom side up so it wouldn't be so grimy. I won't say a word about the insects running all over me—either the crawling infantry or the galloping cavalry. In this shape I went to see my master, since he had sent for me. He was astonished to see the scarecrow that walked in, and he laughed so hard his rear tether let loose, and—royal flush. Out of respect for him, I think we should pass over that in silence. After a thousand unsuccessful attempts to talk, he asked me why I was wearing a disguise. I told him, and the result was that instead of pitying me, he swore at me and threw me out of his house. He said that just as I had let that man come in and sleep in my bed, one day I would let someone else in, and they would rob him. II. How Lazaro Embarked at Cartagena By nature I didn't last very long with my masters. And it was that way with this one, too, although I wasn't to blame. So there I was, miserable, all alone, and in despair; and with the clothes I was wearing everyone scoffed and made fun of me. Some people said to me, "That's not a bad little hat you have, with its back door. It looks like an old Dutch lady's bonnet." Others said, "Your rags are certainly stylish. They look like a pigsty: so many other fat little ones are in there with you that you could kill and salt them and send them home to your wife." One of the soldiers—a packhandler—said to me, "Mr. Lazarillo, I'll swear to God your stockings really show off your legs. And your sandals look like the kind the barefoot friars wear." A constable replied, 'That's because this gentleman is going to preach to the Moors." They kept teasing and taunting me so much that I was nearly ready to go back home. But I didn't because I thought it would be a poor war if I couldn't get more than I would lose. What hurt me most was that everyone avoided me like the plague. We embarked at Cartagena: the ship was large and well stocked. They unfurled the sails, and a wind caught them and sent the ship skimming along at a good clip. The land disappeared from sight, and a cross wind lashed the sea and sent waves hurling up to the clouds. As the storm increased, we began losing hope; the captain and crew gave us up for lost. Everyone was weeping and wailing so much I thought we were at a sermon during Holy Week. With all the clamor no one could hear any of the orders that were given. Some people were running to one place, others to another: it was as noisy and chaotic as a blacksmith's shop. Everyone was saying confession to whoever they could. There was even one man who confessed to a prostitute, and she absolved him so well you would have thought she had been doing it for a hundred years. Churning water makes good fishing, they say. So when I saw how busy everyone was, I said to myself: If I die, let it be with my belly full. I wandered down to the bottom of the ship, and there I found huge quantities of bread, wine, meat pies, and preserves, with no one paying any attention to them. I began to eat everything and to fill my stomach so it would be stocked up to last me till judgment day. A soldier came up and asked me to give him confession. He was astonished to see how cheerful I was and what a good appetite I had, and he asked how I could eat when death was so near. I told him I was doing it so that all the sea water I would drink when I drowned wouldn't make me sick. My simplicity made him shake with laughter from head to foot. I confessed a number of people who didn't utter a word with the agony they were in, and I didn't listen to them because I was too busy eating. The officers and people of high rank escaped safely in a skiff, along with two priests who were on board. But my clothes were so bad that I couldn't fit inside. When I had my fill of eating, I went over to a cask full of good wine and transferred as much as I could hold into my stomach. I forgot all about the storm, myself, and everything. The ship started to sink and the water came pouring in as though it had found its home. A corporal grabbed my hands and as he was dying he asked me to listen to a sin he wanted to confess. He said he hadn't carried out a penance he had been given, which was to make a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loreto, even though he had had many opportunities to do it. And now that he wanted to, he couldn't. I told him that with the authority vested in me, I would commute his penance, and that instead of going to Our Lady of Loreto, he could go to Santiago. "Oh, sir," he said. "I would like to carry out that penance, but the water is starting to come into my mouth, and I can't." "If that's the way it is," I said, "the penance I give you is to drink all the water in the sea." But he didn't carry that out either because there were many men there who drank as much as he did. When it came up to my mouth I said to it: Try some other door, this one is not opening. And even if it had opened, the water couldn't have gotten in, because my body was so full of wine it looked like a stuffed pig. As the ship broke apart a huge swarm of fish came in. It was as though they were being given aid from the bodies on board. They ate the flesh of those miserable people who had been overcome by a drop in the ocean, as if they were grazing in the county pasture. They wanted to try me out, but I drew my trustworthy sword and without stopping to chat with such a low-class mob, I laid into them like a donkey in a new field of rye. They hissed at me: "We're not trying to hurt you. We only want to see if you taste good." I worked so hard that in less than half-a-quarter of an hour I killed more than five hundred tuna, and they were the ones that wanted to make a feast out of the flesh of this sinner. The live fish began to feed on the dead ones, and they left Lazaro's company when they saw it wasn't a very profitable place to be. I found myself lord of the sea, with no one to oppose me. I ran around from one place to another, and I saw things that were unbelievable: huge piles of skeletons and bodies. And I found a large number of trunks full of jewels and gold, great heaps of weapons, silks, linens, and spices. I was longing for it all and sighing because it wasn't back at home, safe, so that, as the buffoon says, I could eat my bread dipped in sardines. I did what I could, but that was nothing. I opened a huge chest and filled it full of coins and precious jewels. I took some ropes from the piles of them there and tied up the chest, and then I knotted other ropes together until I had one I thought was long enough to reach to the surface of the water. If I can get all this treasure out of here, I thought to myself, there won't be a tavernkeeper in the world better off than I'll be. I'll build up my estate, live off my investments, and buy a summer house in Toledo. They'll call my wife "Madam," and me they'll call "Sir." I'll marry my daughter to the richest pastrycook in town. Everyone will come to congratulate me, and I'll tell them that I worked hard for it, and that I didn't take it out of the bowels of the earth but from the heart of the sea. That I didn't get damp with sweat but drenched as a dried herring. I have never been as happy in my life as I was then, and I wasn't even thinking about the fact that if I opened my mouth I would stay down there with my treasure, buried till hell froze over. III. How Lazaro Escaped from the Sea I saw how near I was to death, and I was horrified; how near I was to being rich, and I was overjoyed. Death frightened me, and the treasure delighted me. I wanted to run away from the first and enjoy the second. I tore off the rags that my master, the squire, had left me for the services I had done him. Then I tied the rope to my foot and began to swim (I didn't know how to do that very well, but necessity put wings on my feet and oars on my hands). The fish there gathered around to nip at me, and their prodding was like spurs that goaded me on. So with them nipping and me galloping, we came up to the surface of the water, where something happened that was the cause of all my troubles. The fish and I were caught up in some nets that some fishermen had thrown out, and when they felt the fish in the nets they pulled so mightily, and water began to flow into me just as mightily, so that I couldn't hold out, and I started to drown. And I would have drowned if the sailors had not pulled the booty on board with their usual speed. What a God-awful taste! I have never drunk anything that bad in my entire life. It tasted like the archpriest's piss my wife made me drink once, telling me it was good Ocana wine. With the fish on board and myself as well, the fishermen began to pull on the line and discovered the spool (as the saying goes). They found me tangled up in the rope and were astonished, and they said, "What sort of fish is this? Its face looks like a man's. Is it the devil or a ghost? Let's pull on that rope and see what he has fastened to his foot." The fishermen pulled so hard that their ship started to sink. When they saw the trouble they were in, they cut the rope, and at the same time they cut off Lazaro's hopes of ever becoming one of the landed gentry. They turned me upside down so I would empty out the water I had drunk and the wine, too. They saw that I wasn't dead (which was by no means the worst that could have happened to me), so they gave me a little wine, and I came back to life like a lamp with kerosene poured in. They asked me all kinds of questions, but I didn't answer a word until they gave me something to eat. When I got my breath back, the first thing I asked them about was the shackles that were tied to my foot. They told me that they had cut them to get out of the danger they had been in. Troy was lost and so were all of Lazaro's great desires: and right then his troubles, cares, and hardships began. There is nothing in the world worse than to have fancied yourself rich, on top of the world, and then to suddenly find yourself poor and at the bottom of the ladder. I had built my castles on the water, and it had sunk them all. I told the fishermen what both of us lost when they had cut off my shackles. They were so angry that one of them nearly went mad. The shrewdest one said they should throw me back into the sea and wait for me there until I came up again. They all agreed with him, and even though I objected strongly, their minds were made up: they said that since I knew the way, it would be easy for me (as if I would be going to the pastry shop or the tavern!). They were so blinded by their greed that they would have thrown me out if my fortune (or misfortune) had not arranged for a ship to come up to us to help carry back the fish. They all kept quiet so that the others wouldn't find out about the treasure they had discovered. But they had to leave off their evil plan for the moment. They brought their boats to shore, and they threw me back with the fish to hide me, intending to hunt for me again when they could. Later, two of them picked me up and carried me to a little hut nearby. One man who didn't know the secret asked them what I was. They said I was a monster that had been caught with the tuna. When they had me inside that miserable pigsty, I begged them to give me some rags to cover my naked body so I could be presentable. You can do that," they said, "after you've settled your account with the hostess." At the time I didn't understand their gibberish. The fame of the monster spread through the countryside, and many people came to the hut to see me. But the fishermen didn't want to show me; they said they were waiting for permission from the bishops and the Inquisition and that, until then, it was entirely out of the question. I was stupified. I didn't know what they were planning, and so I didn't know what to say or do. The same thing happened to me that happens to the cuckold: he is the last to find out. Those devils cooked up a scheme that Satan himself wouldn't have thought of. But that requires a new chapter and a new look. IV. How They Took Lazaro through Spain Opportunity makes the thief. And when the fishermen realized they had such a good opportunity, they grabbed it lock, stock, and barrel. When they saw that so many people were gathering around the new fish, they decided to win back what they had lost when they cut the rope from my foot. So they sent word to the ministers of the Inquisition, asking permission to show a fish with a man's face through all of Spain. And when they offered those gentlemen a present of the best fish they had caught, they were given that permission immediately. Meanwhile, our friend Lazaro was thanking God for having taken him out of the belly of the whale. (And that was a great miracle since my ability and knowledge were not very good, and I swam like a lead brick.) Four of the fishermen grabbed hold of me, and they seemed more like executioners—the kind that crucified Christ—than men. They tied up my hands, and then they put a mossy wig and beard on me, and they didn't forget the mustache: I looked like a garden statue. They wrapped my feet in seaweed, and I saw that they had dressed me up like a stuffed and trussed trout. Then I began to groan and moan over my troubles, complaining to fate or fortune: Why are you always pursuing me? I have never seen or touched you, but if a man can tell the cause by the effects, I know from my experience with you that there is no siren, basilisk, viper, or lioness with her young more cruel than you are. By flattery and caresses you lift men up to the height of your riches and pleasures and then hurtle them into the abyss of all their misery and calamities, and their depths are as low as your favors were high. One of those cutthroats heard my soliloquy, and with a rasping voice he said to me, "If you say another word, Mr. Tunafish, we'll salt you along with your friends, or we'll burn you as a monster. The Inquisition," he continued, "has told us to take you through the village and towns in Spain and to show you off to everyone as a wonder and monster of nature." I swore to them that I was no tuna, monster, or anything out of the ordinary. I said that I was a man just like everyone else, and that if I had come out of the ocean it was because I had fallen into it along with the men who drowned while going to make war on Algiers. But they were deaf men, and even worse, because they didn't want to hear. When I saw that my begging was as useless as the soap they use to wash an ass's head, I became patient and waited for time—which cures everything—to cure my trouble, knowing it all came from suffering through that damned metamorphosis. They put me in a barrel cut in half, made to look like a brigantine. Then they filled it with water that came up to my lips as I sat in it. I couldn't stand up because they had my feet tied with a rope, and one end of it came out between the mesh of that hairy mess of mine so that if I made so much as a peep, they would make me hop and sink like a frog and drink more water than a person with dropsy. I would keep my mouth closed until I felt whoever was pulling on the rope let it go slack. Then I would stick my head out like a turtle, and I learned by what happened to my own. They showed me like this to everyone, and so many people came to see me (each one paying twenty coppers) that they made two hundred pieces of silver in one day. The more money they made the more they wanted, and they began to be very concerned about my health so they could prolong it. They held a summit conference and discussed whether or not they should take me out of the water at night: they were afraid that with all the wet and cold it might cut my life short, and they loved mine more than their own (because of all the profit they were getting from mine). They decided to keep me in the water all the time because they thought the force of habit would change my nature. So poor Lazaro was like a string of wet rice or the binding on a raft. I leave to the dear reader's imagination what I went through in this situation: here I was, a captive in this free land, in chains because of the wickedness of those greedy puppeteers. The worst part about it, and what tormented me most, was that I had to pretend to be mute when I really wasn't. I wasn't even able to open my mouth because the instant I did my guard was so alert that without anyone being able to see him, he would fill me up with water, afraid that I would talk. My meals were dunked bread that the people who came to see me threw in so they could watch me eat. So for the six months I spent in that cooler I didn't get another damned thing to eat: I was dying of hunger. I drank tub water, and since it wasn't very clean it was all the more nourishing—especially because its coldness gave me attacks of diarrhea that lasted me as long as that watery purgatory did. V. How They Took Lazaro to the Capital Those torturers took me from city to town, from town to village, from village to farm, happier than a lark with their earnings. They made fun of poor Lazaro, and they would sing: "Hooray, hooray for the fish. He earns our keep while we loaf." My "coffin" was placed on a cart, and three men went along with me: the mule driver, the man who pulled on the rope whenever I tried to say anything, and the one who told all about me. This last one would make a speech about the strange way they caught me, telling more lies than a tailor at Eastertime. When we were traveling and no one else was around, they let me talk, and that was the only courtesy they showed me. I asked them who the devil had put it in their heads to take me around like that, in a fish bowl. They answered that if they didn't do it I would die on the spot because, since I was a fish, I couldn't live out of water. When I saw how their minds were set on the idea, I decided to be a fish, and I finally convinced myself that I was one: after all, everyone else thought that's what I was, and that the seawater had changed me into one, and they say that the voice of the people is the voice of God. So from then on I was as silent as a man at mass. They took me to the capital, and there they really made a lot of money. Because the people there, being idlers, liked novelties. Among all the people who came to see me there were two students. They studied the features of my face very carefully, and then, in a low tone, they said that they would swear on the Bible I was a man and not a fish. And they said if they were the authorities they would get at the naked truth by taking a leather strap to our naked shoulders. I was praying to God with all my heart and soul that they would do it, as long as they could get me out of there. I tried to help them by shouting, 'You scholars are right." But I hardly had my mouth open when my guard pulled me under the water. Everyone's shouting when I ducked (or, rather, when they dunked me) stopped those good scholars from going on with their talk. They threw bread to me, and I would bolt it down almost before it had a chance to get wet. They didn't give me half of what I could eat. I remembered the feasts I had in Toledo, how well I ate with my German friends, and that good wine I used to announce in the streets. I prayed to God to repeat the miracle of Cana of Galilee and not let me die at the hands of water—my worst enemy. I thought about what those students had said, which no one heard because of the noise. I realized that I was a man, and I never thought otherwise from then on, although my wife had told me many times that I was a beast, and the boys at Toledo used to say, "Mr. Lazaro, pull your hat down a little—we can see your horns." All this, along with the sauce I was in, had made me doubt whether or not I really was a man. But after I heard those blessed earthly diviners, I had no more doubts about it, and I tried to escape from the hands of those Chaldeans. Once, in the dead of night, I saw that my guards were fast asleep, and I tried to get loose. But the ropes around me were wet, and I couldn't. I thought about shouting, but I decided that that wouldn't work, since the first one who heard me would seal my mouth with a half-gallon of water. When I saw that way out cut off, I began to twist around impatiently in the slough, and I struggled and pushed so much that the cask turned over, and me along with it. All the water spilled out, and when I found myself freed I shouted for help. The fishermen were terrified when they realized what I'd done, and they quickly hit on a solution: they stopped up my mouth by stuffing it full of seaweed. And to muddle my shouts, they began to shout themselves, even louder, calling out, "Help, help, call the law!" And as they were doing all this, they filled the cask back up with water from a nearby well, with unbelievable speed. The innkeeper came running out with a battle-ax, and everyone else at the inn came out armed with iron pokers and sticks. All the neighbors came in, along with a constable and six deputies who happened to be passing by. The innkeeper asked the sailors what had happened, and they answered that thieves had tried to steal their fish. And like a madman he began shouting, "Get the thieves, get the thieves!" Some went to see if they had gotten out the door; others went to find out if they were escaping across the rooftops. And as for me, my custodians had put me back in my vat. It happened that the water that spilled out all ran through a hole in the floor, onto the bed of a room downstairs where the daughter of the house was sleeping. Now this girl had been so moved to charity that she had brought a young priest in with her to spend the night in contemplation. They became so frightened when the deluge fell on the bed and all the people began shouting that they crawled out through a window as naked as Adam and Eve, without even a fig leaf to cover their private parts. There was a full moon, and its brightness was so great that it could have competed with the sun. When the people saw them they shouted, "Get the thieves, catch the thieves!" The deputies and the constable ran after the girl and the priest and quickly caught up with them because they were barefoot and the stones on the ground made it difficult for them to run. And in one swoop they led them off to jail. Early next morning the fishermen left Madrid to go to Toledo, and they never did find out what God had done with that simple little maiden and the devout priest. VI. How They Took Lazaro to Toledo Man's efforts are vain, his knowledge is nil, and he has no ability when God does not strengthen, teach, and guide him. All my efforts only served to make my guards more wary and careful. The outburst of the night before made them very angry, and they beat me so much along the road that they nearly left me for dead. They said, You damned fish—you were trying to get away. If we weren't so kindhearted, we would kill you. You're like an oak tree that won't give up its acorns unless it's beaten." The fishermen took me into Toledo, pounded, cursed, and dying of hunger. They found a place to stay, near the square of Zocodover, at the house of a lady whose wines I used to announce. They put me in a room downstairs, and many people came to see me. One of them was my Elvira, leading my daughter by the hand. When I saw them I couldn't hold back two Nile Rivers of tears that flowed from my eyes. I sighed and wept—but to myself so the fishermen wouldn't deprive me of what I loved so much and what I wanted to feast my eyes on. Although it might have been better if those men who took away my voice had taken away my sight, too, because when I looked at my wife carefully I saw—I don't know if I should say it—she looked like she was about to go into labor. I sat there absolutely amazed, although I shouldn't have been if I had thought about it because my lord the archdeacon told me when I left that city to go to war that he would treat her as if she were his very own. What really bothered me was that I couldn't convince myself that she was pregnant by me because I had been gone for more than a year. When we were living together she used to say to me, "Lazaro, don't think I'm cheating on you, because if you do you're very wrong." And I was so satisfied that I avoided thinking anything bad about her the way the devil avoids holy water. I spent my life happy and content and not at all jealous (which is a madman's sickness). Time and again I have thought to myself that this business of children is all a matter of belief. Because how many men are there who love children they think are their own when the only thing they have in common is their name? And there are others who hate their children because they get the notion that their wives have put horns on their heads. I began to count the days and months, and I found the road to my consolation closed off. Then I began to think that my wife might have dropsy. I didn't go on with this pious meditation very long because as soon as she left, two old women began to talk to each other: "What do you think of that archpriestess? She certainly doesn't need her husband around." "Who is the father?" asked the other. 'Who?" answered the first, 'Why, the archpriest. And he's such a good man that, to avoid the scandal that would spread if she gave birth in his house without a husband, he's going to marry her to that foreigner, Pierre, next Sunday, and that fellow will be just as understanding as my friend, Lazaro." This was the last straw—the non plus ultra —of my understanding. My heart began to break out in a sweat in the water, and without being able to lift a hand I fainted in that hogsty. The water began to pour into me through every door and window, without any resistance. I looked like I was dead (although it was completely against my will, because I wanted to live as long as I could and as long as God would let me, in spite of those damned fishermen and my bad luck). The fishermen were very upset, and they made every one leave. Then they very quickly lifted my head out of the water. When they saw that I had no pulse and that I'd stopped breathing, they did, too. They started to moan over what they had lost (which was no small amount for them), and they took me out of the cask. Then they tried to make me vomit up all I had drunk, but that was useless because death had come in and closed the door behind. When they saw all their dreams gone up in smoke, they turned as ashen as lilies on the Sunday after Easter. They couldn't think of any way to abet or abate their trials and troubles. The Council of Three finally decreed that the following night they would take me to the river and throw me in with a stone tied around my neck so that what had caused my death would also be my grave. VII. What Happened to Lazaro on the Way to the Tagus River Never lose hope no matter how miserable you are, because when you least expect it God will open the doors and windows of His mercy and will show that nothing is impossible for Him, and that He has the knowledge, the ability, and the desire to change the plans of the wicked into healthful, beneficial remedies for those who trust in Him. Those brutal executioners decided that Death wasn't joking (it seldom does), so they put me in a sack, threw me across the back of a donkey like a wineskin—or rather a waterskin, since I was full of water up to my mouth—and started out along the road of Cuesta de Carmen. And they were more sorrowful than if they were going to bury the father who gave them life and the mother who bore them. It was my good fortune that when they put me on the mule, I was belly side down. Since my head was hanging downward, I began to spew out water as if they had lifted the floodgates on a dam, or as if I were a drop hammer. I came to, and when I caught my breath I realized that I was out of the water and out of that blasted hairy mess. I didn't know where I was or where they were taking me. I only heard them saying, "For our own safety we'll have to find a very deep well so they won't discover him so soon." Then I saw the handwriting on the wall and guessed what was happening. I knew that their bark could be no worse than their bite, and when I heard people approaching I called, "Help, help, for God's sake!" The people I had noticed were the night watch, and they ran up when they heard my cries, their swords out and ready. They searched the sack, and they found poor Lazaro—a drenched haddock. Body and soul, they took us all off to jail on the spot: the fishermen were crying to see themselves imprisoned, and I was laughing to find myself free. They put them in a cell and me in a bed. The next morning they took our statements. The fishermen confessed that they had carried me all over Spain, but they said that they had done it thinking I was a fish and that they had asked for the Inquisition's permission to do it. I told them the truth of the matter: how those fiends had tied me up so that I couldn't make a peep. They had the archpriest and my good Bridget come to testify as to whether or not I really was the Lazaro of Tormes I said I was. My wife came in first, and she looked me over very carefully, and then said it was true that I did look something like her good husband, but she didn't think I was him because even though I had been an animal, I was more like a drone than a fish, and more like a bullock than a tuna. After saying this she made a deep bow and left. The attorney for those hangmen said I should be burned because I was undoubtedly a monster, and he was going to prove it. I thought to myself: What if there really is an enchanter following me and changing me into anything he likes? The judges told him to be quiet. Then the archpriest came in. He saw me looking as pale and wrinkled as an old lady's belly, and he said he didn't recognize my face or my figure. I refreshed his memory about some past things (many of them secret) that had happened between us; I especially told him to think back on the night he came to my bed naked and said that he was afraid of a ghost in his bedroom, and then crawled into bed between my wife and me. So that I wouldn't go on with these reminders, he confessed that I really was his good friend and servant, Lazaro. The trial ended with the testimony of the captain who had taken me with him from Toledo. He was one of those who escaped the storm in a skiff, and he confessed that I was, in fact, his servant Lazaro. The time and place the fishermen said they had fished me out supported that. The judges sentenced them to two hundred whippings apiece and the confiscation of their belongings: a third of it would be given to the King, a third to the prisoners, and a third to Lazaro. They found them with two thousand pieces of silver, two mules, and a cart, and after the costs and expenditures were paid I got two hundred pieces of silver. The sailors were plucked and skinned, and I was rich and happy because I had never in my life been the owner of so much money at one time. I went to the house of a friend of mine, and after I had downed a few pitchers of wine to get rid of the bad taste of the water and was feeling mellow, I began to strut around like a count and to eat like a king; I was esteemed by my friends, feared by my enemies, and wooed by everyone. My past troubles seemed like a dream to me, my present luck was like a port of leisure, and my future hopes a paradise of delights. Hardships humiliate, prosperity makes a man haughty. For the time those two hundred silver pieces lasted, if the King had called me his cousin I would have taken it as an insult. When we Spaniards get a silver coin, we're princes, and even if we don't have one we still have the vanity that goes with it. If you ask some shabby beggar who he is, he'll tell you at the very least that he is of noble blood and that his bad luck has him backed into a corner, and that's how this mad world is: it raises those who are on the bottom and lowers those who are on top. But even though it is that way, he won't give in to anyone, he puts only the highest value on himself, and he will die of hunger before he'll work. And if Spaniards do take a job or learn something, they have such contempt for it that either they won't work or, if they do, their work is so bad that you can hardly find a good craftsman anywhere in Spain. I remember there was a cobbler in Salamanca, and whenever anyone brought him something to fix, he would deliver a soliloquy, complaining that fate had put him in such straits that he had to work in this lowly position when the good name of his family was so well known all over Spain. One day I asked one of his neighbors who that bragger's parents were. They told me his father was a grape stomper, and in winter a hogkiller, and that his mother was a belly washer (I mean the maid for a tripe merchant). I bought a worn-out velvet suit and a ragged cast-off cape from Segovia. The sword I wore was so enormous that its tip would unpave the streets as I walked. I didn't want to go and see my wife when I got out of jail so that she would want to see me even more, and also to take revenge for the disdain for me that she was carrying around inside herself. I really thought that when she saw me so well-dressed she would repent and greet me with open arms. But obstinate she was, and obstinate she remained. I found her with a new baby and a new husband. When she saw me she shouted, "Get that damn drenched fish—that plucked goose—out of my sight because, if you don't, I swear on my father's grave that I'll get up and poke his eyes out!" And I answered very coolly, "Not so fast, Mrs. Streetwalker. If you won't admit I'm your husband, then you're not my wife either. Give me my daughter, and we'll still be friends. I have enough of a fortune now," I went on, "to marry her to a very honorable man." I thought those two hundred pieces of silver would turn out to be like the fifty silver coins of little Blessed John who, every time he spent them, would find fifty more in his purse. But since I was little Bedeviled Lazaro, it didn't turn out that way with me, as you will see in the next chapter. The archpriest contested my demand. He said she wasn't mine, and to prove it he showed me the baptismal book, and when it was compared to the marriage records, it was evident that the child had been born four months after I knew my wife. Up to then I had felt as spirited as a stallion, but I suddenly realized they had made an ass of me: my daughter wasn't mine at all. I shook the dust off my feet and washed my hands to show my innocence and that I was leaving for good. I turned my back on them, feeling as content as if I had never known them. I went looking for my friends and told them what had happened; they consoled me—which wasn't hard for them to do. I didn't want to go back to my job as a town crier because my new velvet clothes had changed my self-esteem. While I was taking a walk to the Visagra gate I met an old woman, a friend of mine, at the gate of the convent of San Juan de los Reyes. After she greeted me she told me that my wife had softened when she'd found out about all the money I had, especially now that that Frenchman had chastened her. I begged her to tell me what had happened. She said the archpriest and my wife had talked one day about whether it would be a good idea to take me back in and throw Frenchy out; and they discussed the pros and cons of it. But their discussion was not so secret that the bridegroom didn't hear it. He pretended he hadn't heard a thing, and the next morning he went to work at the olive grove. At noon, when his wife and mine brought his lunch out to him, he pulled off all her clothes, tied her to the trunk of a tree, and gave her more than a hundred lashes. And still not satisfied, he made all her clothes into a bundle, took off her jewelry, and walked away with it all, leaving her tied up, naked and bleeding. She would undoubtedly have died there if the archpriest hadn't sent someone looking for her. The lady also told me she was absolutely sure that if I arranged for somebody to ask her, she would welcome me back, because she had heard my Elvira say, "Poor me, why didn't I take back my good Lazaro? He was as good as could be. He was never critical or particular, and I could do whatever I wanted." This was the touch that turned me, and I was thinking of taking the good old woman's advice, but first I wanted to talk it over with my friends. VIII. How Lazaro Brought a Lawsuit against His Wife We men are like barnyard hens: if we want to do something good we shout it out and cackle about it; but if it's something bad, we don't want anybody to find out so they won't stop us from doing what we shouldn't. I went to see one of my friends, and I found three of them there together; because after I had come into money, they multiplied like flies. I told them what I wanted to do—go back to my wife and get away from wagging tongues because "Better certain evil than doubtful good." They painted a black picture to me and said I was spineless and that I didn't have a brain in my body because the woman I wanted to live with was a whore, a hussy, a trollop, a slut, and, finally, a devil's mule. (That's what they call a priest's mistress in Toledo.) My friends said so many things to me and gave me so many arguments that I decided not to beg or even ask my wife. When my good friends (damned friends, anyway) saw that their arguments and advice had done their work, they went even further. They said they were advising me, because I was such a good friend, to remove the spots and the stains on my honor and to defend it, since it had fallen into such bad times, by suing the archpriest and my wife. They said it wouldn't cost so much as a penny since they were lawyers. One of them was an attorney for lost causes, and he offered me a thousand pieces of silver from the profits. The other one was more knowledgeable because he was a prostitutes' lawyer, and he told me that if he were in my shoes he wouldn't take less than two thousand. The third one assured me (and since he was a bumbailiff, he knew what he was talking about) that he had seen other lawsuits that were less clear, that had brought the people who began them an enormous amount of money. Furthermore, he thought that at the first confrontation that Domine Baccalaureus would fill my hands and anoint the lawyers' to make us withdraw the lawsuit, and that he would beg me to go back to my wife. So I would get more honor and profit from it than if I went back to her on my own. My friends commended this business to me highly, luring me on with high hopes. I was taken in right then. I didn't know what to say to their sophist arguments, although it really seemed to me that it would be better to forgive and forget than to go to extremes, and that I should carry out the most difficult of God's commandments (the fourth one), which is to love your enemies— especially since my wife had never acted like an enemy to me. In fact, it was because of her that I had begun to rise in the world and become known by many people who would point at me and say, "There goes that nice fellow, Lazaro." Because of my wife I was somebody. If the daughter that the archdeacon said wasn't mine, was or wasn't, only God, who looks into men's hearts, knows. It could be that he was fooled just the way I was. And it could happen that some of the people who are reading and laughing over my simpleness so hard they slobber on their beards might be raising the children of some ignorant priest. They might be working, sweating, and striving to leave the very ones rich who will impoverish their honor, and all the time they are so sure that if there is any woman in the world who is faithful, it's their wife. And even your name, dear reader— Lord Whitehall—might really come from Wittol. But I don't want to destroy anyone's illusions. All these reflections still weren't enough, so I took out a lawsuit against the archpriest and my wife. Since there was ready money, they had them in jail inside of twenty-four hours: him in the archbishop's prison and her in the public one. The lawyers told me not to worry about the money that that business could cost me since it would all come out of that priest's hide. So, to make it even worse for the priest and to raise the costs, I gave whatever they asked me. They were walking around diligent, solicitous, and energetic. When they smelled my cash, they were like flies on honey: they didn't take a step in vain. In less than a week the lawsuit had moved far ahead, and my pocketbook had lost as much ground. The evidence was gathered easily because the constables who arrested my wife and the archpriest caught them in the act and had taken them off to jail in their nightshirts, the way they found them. There were many witnesses who told the truth. My good lawyers and counselors and the court clerk saw how thin and weak my pocketbook was getting, and they began to falter. It reached the point where I had to spur them harder than a hired mule to get them to make a move. The slowdown was so great that when the archpriest and his group heard about it, they started crowing and anointing the hands and feet of my representatives. They seemed like the weights on a clock that were going up just as fast as mine were coming down. They managed it so well that in two weeks the archpriest and my wife were out of jail on bond, and in less than one week more they condemned Lazaro with false witnesses so that he had to apologize, pay the court costs, and be banished from Toledo forever. I apologized the way I should have, since with only two hundred silver pieces I had taken a lawsuit out against a man who had that much money to burn. I gave them the shirt off my back to help pay the court costs, and I left the city in the raw. There I was, rich for an instant, suing a dignitary of the Holy Church of Toledo, an undertaking fit only for a prince. I had been respected by my friends, feared by my enemies, in the position of a gentleman who wouldn't put up with a whisper of aspersion. And just as suddenly I found myself thrown out—not from any earthly paradise with figleaves to cover my private parts, but from the place I loved most and where I had gotten so much comfort and pleasure, using some rags I found in a rubbish heap to cover my nakedness. I took refuge in the common consolation of all unfortunates. I thought that since I was at the bottom of the wheel of fortune I would be certain to go back up. I recall now what I once heard my master, the blind man (who was like a fox whenever he started to preach), say: Every man in the world rose and fell on the wheel of fortune; some followed the movement of the wheel, and others went against it. And there was this difference between them: those who followed the wheel's movement fell as quickly as they rose; and those who went against it, once they reached the top—even if they had to work hard at it—they stayed there longer than the others. According to this, I was going right with the grain—and so quickly that I was barely on top when I found myself in the abyss of misery. I found myself a picaro—and a real one, since I had only been pretending up to then. And I could really say: Naked was I born, naked am I now, nothing lost and nothing gained. I started off toward Madrid, begging along the way since that was something I knew how to do very well. So there I was again, back at my trade. I told everyone about my troubles: some felt sorry, others laughed, and some gave me alms. Since I had no wife or children to support, with what they gave me I had more than enough to eat, and to drink, too. That year people had harvested so many grapes for wine that at nearly every door I went to they asked if I wanted anything to drink, because they didn't have any bread to give me. I never refused, and so sometimes I would down a good two gallons of wine before eating anything, and I'd be happier than a girl on the eve of a party. Let me tell you what I really think: the picaresque life is the 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.