The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes

offertory not a single blanca was dropped into the shell without being registered by him. He kept one eye on the congregation and the other on my hands, moving his eyes about as if they were quicksilver. He knew exactly how many blancas had been given, and as soon as the offertory was over, he took the shell from me and put it on the altar. During all the time I lived, or rather was dying in his service, I never was master of a single blanca. I never brought a blanca worth of wine from a tavern, but it was put into his chest to last for a week. To conceal his extreme stinginess he said to me, “Look here, boy! Priests have to be very frugal in eating and drinking, and for this reason I do not feed like other people.” But he lied shamefully. For at meetings and funerals where we had to say prayers and responses, and where he could get food at the expense of others, he ate like a wolf and drank more than a proposer of toasts.

And why do I speak of funerals? God forgive me! for I never was an enemy to the human race except on those occasions. Then we could eat well, and I wished, and even prayed to God that He would kill someone every day. When we gave the Sacraments to the sick, especially extreme unction, the priest was called upon to say prayers for those who were present. I was certainly not the last in prayer, for with all my heart I besought the Lord that He would take the sick man to Himself. If anyone recovered I devoted him to the devil a thousand times. He who died received many benedictions from me, yet the number of persons who died during the whole time I was there, which was over six months, only amounted to twenty. I verily believed that I killed them, or rather that they died in answer to my prayers, the Lord seeing how near death I was, and that their deaths gave me life.

But there was no remedy, for if on the days of the funerals I lived, on the days when no one died I was starving, and I felt it all the more. So that there seemed to be no rest for me but in death; and I often desired it for myself, as well as for others.

I frequently thought of leaving my penurious master, but two things detained me. The first was that I feared my legs would not carry me, so reduced was I by starvation. The other was the consideration that I had had two masters. The first starved me, the second brought me to death’s door, and a third might finish me. It appeared that any change might be for the worse.

One day when my wretched master was out, a locksmith came to the door by chance. I thought that he was an angel sent to me by the hand of God, in the dress of a workman. He asked me whether I had any work for him to do. Inspired by the Holy Spirit I replied: “Uncle! I have lost a key, and I fear that my master will whip me. Kindly see if there are any on your bunch that will fit the lock, and I will pay you for it.” The angelic locksmith began to try his keys, and soon the chest was opened, and I beheld the Lord’s gift in the form of bread. “I have no money,” I said, “to give you for the key, but take what you like in payment.” He took one of the loaves that looked the best, and went away quite satisfied, leaving the key with me. I did not touch anything, at the moment, because I did not feel the need. My wretched master came back, and, as God willed it, he did not look into the trunk which that angel had opened. But next day, when he had gone out, I opened my bread paradise and took a loaf between the hands and teeth. In two credos I made it invisible. Not forgetting the open chest, I rejoiced to think that, with this remedy, my life would be less miserable. Thus I was happy with him for two days, but it was not destined that this should continue. For on the third day, at the very time that I was dying of hunger, he was to be seen at our chest, counting and recounting the loaves. I dissimulated, and, in my secret prayers and devotions, I implored that he might be blinded. After he had been counting for a long time, he said: “If I did not keep such an exact account I should think that some loaves have been taken from this chest. From this day I shall have a more accurate account. There are now nine loaves and part of another.” “New misfortunes have come,” I said to myself, and I felt that my stomach would soon be in the same wretched state as before.

When the priest went out, I opened the chest as some consolation, and when I saw the bread I began to worship it, giving it a thousand kisses. But I did not pass that day so happily as the day before. As my hunger increased, so did my longing for more bread. At length God, who helps the afflicted, showed me a remedy. I said to myself: “This chest is old, and broken in some parts, though the holes are very small. The belief might be suggested that rats had got through these holes and had eaten some of the bread.” It would not do to eat wholesale, but I began to crumble the bread over some not very valuable cloth, taking some and leaving some, and thus I got a meal. When the priest came to examine the damage,