We went out of Salamanca and came to the bridge. There is, at the entrance of it, an animal of stone14 which almost has the shape of a bull. The blind man told me to go near this animal, and, being there, he said, “Lazaro, put your ear against this bull, and you will hear a great noise inside.” I did so, like a simpleton, believing it to be as he said. When he felt that my head was against the stone, he raised his hand and gave me a tremendous blow against the devil of a bull, so that I felt the pain for more than three days. Then he said to me, “This will teach you that a blind man’s boy ought to be one point more knowing than the devil himself”; and he laughed heartily at his joke. It seemed to me that, in an instant, I awoke from my simplicity in which I had reposed from childhood. I said to myself, “This man says truly that it behoves me to keep my eyes open, for I am alone and have to think for myself.”
We set out on our road, and in a very few days I showed myself to be sprightly, which pleased the blind man, and he said, “I can give you neither gold nor silver, but I can teach you much in the ways of getting a livelihood.” It was so that, after a few days, he showed me many things, and being blind himself, he enlightened and guided me in the ways of life. I mention these trifles to your Honour to show how much knowledge men must have when they are down, and to keep from falling when they are exalted.
Speaking of the good there was in my blind man, your Honour must know that since God created the world He has not made a being more astute and sagacious. In his own line he was unequalled. He knew a hundred or more prayers of the choir, he recited in a low and very tuneful voice, he put on a devout and very humble countenance when he recited, without making faces or gestures as others usually do. Besides this he had a hundred other ways and means of getting money. He knew how to make prayers on different occasions, for women who were childless, for those who were about to bear children, and for those who had married unhappily, that their husbands might like them well. He foretold whether a woman would have a boy or a girl. In the matter of medicine he said that Galen did not possess half his knowledge for curing toothaches, fainting fits, or illnesses of mothers. Finally, no one mentioned what pain or illness he or she was suffering from, but he told them at once—do this, you should do that, gather such a herb, take such a root. In this way he went with all the world after him, especially the women. They believed whatever he said, and from them he drew great profits by the arts I have described, for he gained more in a month than a hundred other blind men would in a year. I also desire that your Honour should know that, in spite of all he acquired and had, I never met a man so avaricious and stingy, insomuch that he nearly killed me with hunger, depriving me of the necessaries of life.
I tell the truth, that if, by way of subtlety and cunning, I had not found a remedy, I should many times have succumbed to starvation. With all his knowledge and experience, I managed so well that, oftener than not, I got the best of it. On account of these matters, there were infernal rows between us, of which I will relate some but not all.
He carried the bread, and all the rest of his things, in a linen knapsack, closing the mouth with an iron chain having a padlock and key. He put in and took out his things himself, using great vigilance, and he kept such a close account that there was not a man in all the world who could have taken so much as a crumb without his knowing it. Well, I had to take the lazar’s allowance which he gave me. It was all despatched in less than two mouthfuls. After he had locked the bag and was not looking out, thinking that I was attending to other things, by a little unstitching I often opened one side of the bag and sewed it up again; bleeding the avaricious knapsack not only of bread but of good pieces of bacon and sausage. Thus I watched for convenient times to make up for the infernal wrong that the wicked blind man inflicted on me.
All that I could pilfer and steal I carried in half blancas. When they paid him for saying prayers for them, they gave him a whole blanca. But as he could not see, I had got it in my mouth, and put a half blanca in its place, before his hand had reached it, quick as he was, so that he only got half-price. The evil-minded blind man complained when he found that it was not a whole blanca. He
