“Your Worship shall understand, before all things, that my name is Lazaro de Tormes, son of Thomas Gonzalez and Antonia Pelez, native of Tejares, a village near Salamanca. I was born within the river called Tormes, whereof I took my surname. My father (whom God pardon) had the charge of a mill standing upon that river, wherein he supplied the room of a miller about fifteen years. It fortuned on a night, my mother being great with child was there brought to bed, and there was I born; therefore now I may truly report the river itself to be the place of my nativity; and after the time I came to the age of eight years, there was laid to my father’s charge that he had shamefully cut the seams of men’s sacks that came thither to grind; wherefore he was taken and imprisoned, and being tormented, he confessed the whole matter, denying nothing, wherefore he was persecuted. I trust in God he is now in Paradise, seeing the Gospel doth say that blessed are such as confess their faults.”
“Lazarillo de Tormes,” Hurtado de Mendoza, 1503-1575.
Trans. David Rowland.
HOW LAZARO SERVES A BLIND MAN.
I am sorry to say that I never met with so avaricious and so wicked an old curmudgeon; he allowed me almost to die daily of hunger, without troubling himself about my necessities; and, to say the truth, if I had not helped myself by means of a ready wit and nimble fingers, I should have closed my account from sheer starvation.
Notwithstanding all my master’s astuteness and cunning, I contrived so to outwit him that generally the best half came to my share. But to accomplish this I was obliged to tax my powers of invention to the uttermost. The old man was accustomed to carry his bread, meat, and other things, in a sort of linen knapsack, which was closed at the mouth with an iron ring, and secured also by a padlock; but in adding to his store, or taking from it, he used such vigilance that it was almost an impossibility to cheat him of a single morsel. However, when he had given me my pittance, which I found no difficulty in dispatching at about two mouthfuls, and closed his budget, thinking himself perfectly secure from depredation, I began my tactics, and by means of a small rent, which I slyly effected in one of the seams of the bag, I used to help myself to the choicest pieces of meat, bacon, and sausage, taking care to close the seam according as opportunity occurred. But in addition to this, all that I could collect together, either by fraud or otherwise, I carried about me in half farthings; so that when the old man was sent for to pray, and they gave him farthings (all which passed through my hands, he being blind), I contrived to slip them into my mouth, by which process so quick an alteration was effected that when they reached his hands they were invariably reduced to half the original value.
“I PROCURED A LARGE STRAW.”
The cunning old fellow, however, suspected me, for he used to say, “How the deuce is this? ever since you have been with me they give me nothing but half-farthings, whereas before it was not an unusual thing to be paid with halfpence, but never less than farthings. I must be sharp with you, I find.” Whenever we ate, the old man took care to keep a small jar of wine near him, which was reserved for his own especial service, but I very soon adopted the practice of bestowing on this favourite jar sundry loving though stolen embraces. Such pleasures were but short-lived, for the fervency of my attachment was soon discovered in the deficiency of the wine; and the old man afterwards, to secure his draught, never let the jar go without tying it to him by the handle. But I was a match for him even there; for I procured a long straw, and, dipping it into the mouth of the jar, renewed my intimacy with such effect that but a small share was his who came after me. The old traitor was not long in finding me out; I think he must have heard me drink, for he quickly changed his plan, and placed the jar between his knees, keeping the mouth closed with his hand, and in this manner considered himself secure from my depredations.
Hurtado de Mendoza. Trans. Roscoe.