A swarthy
stepfather and
a little brown
brother.This intercourse went on until one day my mother gave me a pretty little brown brother, whom I played with and helped to keep warm. I remember once that when my stepfather was fondling the child, it noticed that my mother and I were white, and that he was not. It frightened the child, who ran to my mother, pointing with its finger and saying, “Mother, he is ugly!” To this he replied laughing; but I noticed the words of my little brother, and, though so young, I said to myself, “How many there are in the world who run from others because they do not see themselves in them.”
It was our fate that the intimacy of the Zayde, for so they called my stepfather, came to the ears of the steward. The punishment
for receiving
and living on
stolen goods.On looking into the matter he found that half the corn he gave out for the horses was stolen, also that the fuel, aprons, pillions, horse-cloths, and blankets were missing, and that when nothing else was left, the horse-shoes were taken. With all this my mother was helped to bring up the child. We need not wonder at a priest or a friar, when one robs the poor, and the other his female devotees to help a friend such as himself, when the love of a poor stable-lad brings him to this.
All I have related was proved, because they cross-questioned me with threats, and being a child I answered and let out all I knew from fear, Stolen
horse-shoes.down to certain horse-shoes which, by my mother’s order, I sold to a blacksmith. They flogged my unhappy stepfather, and put my mother on the accustomed penance as a punishment. An order was given that she was not to enter the stables of the Comendador, nor to receive the flogged Zayde in her house.
The poor woman complied with the sentence that she might not lose all; and to avoid danger and silence evil tongues she went away into service. Lazaro helps
at the inn.Takes
service with
a blind man.She was employed in the open gallery of an inn, and so she contrived to rear the little brother, though suffering from many difficulties. She raised him until he could walk, and me until I was a fine little boy, who went for wine and lights for the guests, and for anything else they wanted.
FIRST MASTER
HOW LAZARO TOOK SERVICE WITH A BLIND MAN
At that time a blind man came to lodge at the inn, who, seeing that I would do to lead him, asked for me from my mother. Lazaro enters
the service
of a blind man.She gave me to him, saying that I was the son of a good father, and boasting that he had been killed at the Island of Gelves.[13] She told the blind man that she trusted in God that I would not turn out a worse man than my father, and she begged him to treat me well and look after me, as I was an orphan. He answered that he would do so, and that he received me not as his servant but as his son. Thus it was that I began to serve and to lead my new master. We were in Salamanca for some days, but, as the earnings were not to my master’s liking, he determined to go somewhere else. Lazaro’s farewell
to his mother.When we were about to depart, I went to see my mother, and, both weeping, she gave me her blessing and said, “I shall see you no more. Strive to be good, and may God direct your ways. You have been brought up, and are now put with a good master. Farewell!” And so I went away to my master who was waiting for me.