He then called to me and said: “Lazaro, look! Look what damage has been done to our bread last night!” I appeared to be much astonished, and wondered how it could have happened. “It is the rats,” he declared, “they would leave us nothing.” We went to our meal, and even there it pleased God that I should come off well; for he gave me more than usual, including all the parts he thought the rats had touched, saying: “Eat this which the rat has cleaned.” Thus the work of my hands, or rather nails, was added to my allowance.
Presently I beheld another piece of work. The wretched priest was pulling nails out of the wall, and looking for small boards with which to cover all the holes in the ancient chest. “O Lord!” I then said to myself, “to what miseries and disasters are we born, and how brief are our pleasures in this our toilsome life! I thought that by this poor little contrivance I might find a way to pass out of my misery, and I even ventured to rejoice at my good-fortune, and now my ill-luck has returned.” Using all the diligence in his power, for misers as a rule are not wanting in that commodity, he shut the door of my consolation while he boarded up the holes in the chest. Thus I made my lamentation, as an end was made to the work, with many small boards and nails. “Now,” said the priest, “the traitor rats will find little in this house, and had better leave us, for there is not a hole left large enough for a mosquito to get in.”
When he was gone I opened the chest with my key without any hope of profit from doing so. There were the three or four loaves which my master thought the rats had not begun upon. Night and day I thought of some other plan, with the help of my hunger, for they say that it is an aid to invention. It certainly was so with me. One night I was deep in thought, meditating how I might use the contents of the chest again. My master was snoring loudly, so I took an old knife and went to the chest. I used the knife in the way of a gimlet, and as the ancient piece of furniture was without strength or heart, it soon surrendered, and allowed me to make a nice hole. This done I opened the chest, had a good meal, and went back to my straw bed, where I rested and slept.
Next day my master saw both the hole and the damage done to his provisions. He began to commend the rats to the devil, saying, “What shall we say to this! Never have I known rats in this house until now.” He may well have spoken the truth, for such creatures do not stay where there is nothing to eat. He turned to find more nails in the wall, and a small board to cover the hole. Night came and he retired to rest, while I set to work to open by night what he had closed up in the day. It was like the weaving of Penelope, for all he did by day I undid by night. In a few days we got the poor old chest into such a state, that it might be described as a sieve of old time rather than a chest.
When the miserly priest saw that his remedies were of no use he said: “This chest is so knocked about, and the wood is so old and weak that there is not a rat against which it can be defended. We will leave it without defence outside, and I will go to the cost of three or four reals. As the best outside guard is no use, I will attack these cursed rats from the inside.” He presently borrowed a rattrap, and begged some pieces of cheese from the neighbours. This was a great help to me. In truth I did not need much sauce for my bread, still, I enjoyed the bits of cheese which I got from the rattrap.
When he found the bread eaten in rat’s fashion, the cheese gone, and no rats caught, he again commended the rats to the devil. He asked the neighbours how the cheese could have been taken without the rat being caught. They agreed that it could not have been a rat. One neighbour remembered that there used to be a snake in the house, and they all concurred that it must have been the snake. As it is long it could have taken the cheese without being caught in the trap. This exercised the mind of my master very much, and from that time he slept so lightly that the slightest sound made him think that the snake was going into the chest. Then he would jump up and give the chest many violent blows with a stick, intending to frighten the snake. The noise used to awaken the neighbours, while I could not sleep. He rolled about my straw, and me with it, because the neighbours said that snakes liked to keep warm in the straw, or in cradles where there are babies, where they even bit them and were dangerous. I generally went to sleep again, and he told me about it in the morning, saying: “Did you feel nothing last night, my boy? I was after the snake, and I even think it came to your bed, for when snakes are cold they seek for warmth.” I replied, “It was lucky it did not bite me, but I am terribly frightened.” I
