“Lazaro,” he said, “you owe more to the wine than to your father. He got you once, but the wine has brought you to life several times.” Then he counted how many times he had torn and bruised my face and afterwards cured it with wine. “If there is a man in the world who ought to be lucky with wine,” he added, “it is you.”

Those who were washing me laughed a good deal at what the old man said, though I dissented. However, the prognostications of the blind rascal did not turn out false, and afterwards I often thought of that man, who certainly had the spirit of prophecy.[19] The evil things he did to me made me sad, though I paid him back, as your Honour will presently hear.

Lazaro
determined
to leave
the blind man.Seeing all this, and how the blind man made me a laughing-stock, I determined that at all hazards I would leave him. This resolution was always in my mind, and the last game he played confirmed it. On another day we left the town to seek alms. It had rained a great deal in the previous night. It continued to rain in the day-time, and we got under some arcades in that town, so as to keep out of the wet. Night was coming on and the rain did not cease. The blind man said to me, “Lazaro! this rain is very persistent, and as the night closes in it will not cease, so we will make for the inn in good time. To go there we have to cross a stream which will have become swollen by the heavy rain.” I replied, “Uncle! the stream is now very broad, but if you like I can take you to a place where we can get across without being wet, for it becomes much narrower, and by jumping we can clear it.” This seemed good advice, so he said, “You are discreet and you shall take me to that place where the stream becomes so narrow, for it is winter time, and a bad thing to get our feet wet.” Lazaro prepares
to revenge himself
on the blind man.Seeing that things were going as I wished, I took him out of the arcade, and placed him just in front of a stone pillar that stood in the square. Then I said to him, “Uncle, this is the narrowest part of the stream.”

Lazaro’s
cruel vengeance
on the blind man.As the rain continued and he was getting wet, we were in a hurry to get shelter from the water that was falling upon us. The principal thing was (seeing that God blinded my understanding in that hour) to be avenged. The old man believed in me and said, “Put me in the right place while you jump over the stream.” So I put him just in front of the pillar, and placed myself behind it. I then said, “Jump with all your might so as to clear the stream.” I had hardly finished speaking, when the poor old man, balancing himself like a goat, gave one step backwards, and then sprang with all his force. His head came with such a noise against the pillar that it sounded like a great calabash. He fell down half dead. “How was it you could smell the sausage and not the post? Oh! Oh!” I shouted. Lazaro leaves
his first master.I left him among several people who ran to help him, while I made for the gate of the town at a sharp trot, so that before nightfall I might be in Torrijos, not knowing nor caring what afterwards happened to my blind man.[20]

SECOND MASTER

HOW LAZARO TOOK SERVICE WITH A CLERGYMAN, AND OF THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO HIM.

Next day, The clergyman’s
chest. as I did not feel that I should be quite safe at Torrijos,[21] I stopped at a place called Maqueda,[22] where for my sins I took service with a clergyman. Going to him to ask for alms, he inquired whether I knew how to assist at Mass. I said yes, which was true, for though the blind man ill-treated me, he taught me many useful things, and one of them was this. Finally the clergyman took me as his servant. Out of
the frying-pan
into the fire.I had escaped from the thunder to fall under the lightning. For compared with this priest, the blind man was an Alexander the Great. I will say no more than that all the avarice in the world was combined in this man, but I know not whether it was naturally born in him or whether it was put on with the priestly habit. He had an old chest closed with a key which he carried with him, fastened to the belt of his gown. When he brought the “bodigos”[23] from the church, they were quickly locked up in the chest, and there was nothing to eat in the house such as is to be seen in other houses, a piece of bacon, some bits of cheese on a shelf or in a cupboard, or a few pieces of bread that may have remained over from the table. It seemed to me that the sight of such things, even if I could not have them, would have been a consolation.

Nothing in the
clergyman’s house
but an old chest,
and a string
of onions.There was only a string of onions, and these were under lock and key in an upper chamber, one being allowed for every four days. If I asked for the key, to fetch the allowance, and any one else was present, he put his hand in his pocket, and gave it to me with great ceremony, telling me to take it and return at once without taking anything else; as if all the conserves of Valencia were there. Yet there was not a thing in the room but the onions hanging from a nail, and he kept such a strict account of them, that if I ever took more than my allowance it cost me dear. At last I was near dead with hunger.