One morning the sad esquire got out of bed in his shirt and went up to the roof of the house. I quickly searched the hose and doublet at the head of the bed, and found a small purse of velvet, but there had not been so much as a blanca in it for many a day. “This man,” I said to myself, “is really poor, and cannot give what he has not got. The avaricious blind man and the ill-conditioned clergyman, may God reward them both! nearly killed me with hunger, the one with a kiss on the hand, the other with a deceitful tongue. Those it is right for me to detest, but for this poor man to have a tender feeling.” God is my witness that even now when I meet with anyone dressed like this, and walking with the same pompous air, it makes me sad to think that he might be suffering what I saw my poor master suffer. With all his poverty I liked serving him; but not the other two masters. I only felt some discontent, for I should have liked him not to be quite so proud, and to have lowered his pretensions just a little when his necessities were so great. But it seems to me that it is a well-established rule among such people to march with their caps well cocked, though they have not a blanca to their names. The Lord have mercy on those who have to die of this disease!
I was in this condition, passing the life I have described, when my ill-luck again began to pursue me. In that land the year was one which only yielded a bad harvest, so the municipal authorities resolved that all mendicants should leave the town; with the addition that any who remained after four days should be punished by whipping. Then the law took effect, and there were processions of poor people being whipped down the four streets.
This so frightened me that I did not dare to transgress by begging. So you may imagine the abstinence of our house, and the sadness and silence of its inmates. We were two or three days without eating a mouthful or speaking a word. Some young women, sewers of cotton who made caps and lived near us, kept me alive, for I had made friends with them. From the little they had, they gave me enough to keep body and soul together. I was not so unhappy for myself as for my forlorn master, who in eight days never ate a mouthful, at least in the house. I do not know where he went or what he had to eat when he went out. I used to see him come back at , walking along the street with dignified carriage, thinner than a greyhound of good breed, and with regard to what touched the nonsense he called honour, he brought a straw of which we had not enough in the house. Coming to the door he would grind his teeth with nothing between them, complaining all the time of his bad lodging and saying: “It is a bad thing to see, and a most unlucky place to have to live in, and while we have to be here it will always be wretchedly sad. We have got to endure it, but I wish that this month was over, so that we might leave it.”
Being in this miserable and starving condition, one day, I know not through what good-fortune or chance, my poor master became possessed of a real. He came to the house with it, as delighted as if he had got all the riches of Venice, and smiling at me with a very joyous expression, he said: “Take it, Lazaro, for God has at length begun to open His hand. Go to the market for bread, meat, and wine, for we will break the Devil’s eye. I would further have you to know that I have taken another house, and that we shall not have to be in this wretched one for more than another month. May it be accursed, and he who placed the first tile to build it! O Lord! how have I lived here! Scarcely a drop of wine have I drunk nor a morsel of bread have I eaten, nor have I ever had any rest here, and it looks so sad and forbidding. Go and return quickly, for today we will eat like counts.”
I took the jug and the real, and giving speed to my feet, I began to run up the street to the market, very joyful and contented. But of what avail if evil fortune always brought anxiety with my joy. So it was on this occasion.
As I ran up the street I was calculating how I could spend the money to the best advantage and most profitably, giving thanks to God that my master had got something to spend. Suddenly I met a funeral with many priests and mourners. I got up against the wall to let them pass. Presently they came, one in deep mourning, apparently the wife of the deceased, with other women. She was crying with a loud voice and saying, “O my lord and husband, whither are they taking you, to the sad and empty house, to the dark and wretched
