As the rain continued and he was getting wet, we were in a hurry to get shelter from the water that was falling upon us. The principal thing was (seeing that God blinded my understanding in that hour) to be avenged. The old man believed in me and said, “Put me in the right place while you jump over the stream.” So I put him just in front of the pillar, and placed myself behind it. I then said, “Jump with all your might so as to clear the stream.” I had hardly finished speaking, when the poor old man, balancing himself like a goat, gave one step backwards, and then sprang with all his force. His head came with such a noise against the pillar that it sounded like a great calabash. He fell down half dead. “How was it you could smell the sausage and not the post? Oh! Oh!” I shouted. I left him among several people who ran to help him, while I made for the gate of the town at a sharp trot, so that before nightfall I might be in Torrijos, not knowing nor caring what afterwards happened to my blind man.20
Second Master
How Lazaro Took Service with a Clergyman, and of the Things That Happened to Him
Next day, as I did not feel that I should be quite safe at Torrijos,21 I stopped at a place called Maqueda,22 where for my sins I took service with a clergyman. Going to him to ask for alms, he inquired whether I knew how to assist at Mass. I said yes, which was true, for though the blind man ill-treated me, he taught me many useful things, and one of them was this. Finally the clergyman took me as his servant. I had escaped from the thunder to fall under the lightning. For compared with this priest, the blind man was an Alexander the Great. I will say no more than that all the avarice in the world was combined in this man, but I know not whether it was naturally born in him or whether it was put on with the priestly habit. He had an old chest closed with a key which he carried with him, fastened to the belt of his gown. When he brought the bodigos23 from the church, they were quickly locked up in the chest, and there was nothing to eat in the house such as is to be seen in other houses, a piece of bacon, some bits of cheese on a shelf or in a cupboard, or a few pieces of bread that may have remained over from the table. It seemed to me that the sight of such things, even if I could not have them, would have been a consolation.
There was only a string of onions, and these were under lock and key in an upper chamber, one being allowed for every four days. If I asked for the key, to fetch the allowance, and anyone else was present, he put his hand in his pocket, and gave it to me with great ceremony, telling me to take it and return at once without taking anything else; as if all the conserves of Valencia were there. Yet there was not a thing in the room but the onions hanging from a nail, and he kept such a strict account of them, that if I ever took more than my allowance it cost me dear. At last I was near dead with hunger.
If he showed little charity to me, he treated himself as badly. Small bits of meat formed his usual food for dinner and supper. It is true that he shared the gravy with me, but nothing more except a small piece of bread. On Saturdays they eat sheep’s head in those parts, and my master sent me for one that was to cost three maravedis. He cooked it and ate all the eyes, tongue, brains, and the meat off the cheeks, giving me the well-picked bone on a plate, and saying, “Take! Eat! Triumph! for you is the world, and you live better than the Pope.” At the end of three weeks I became so weak that I could scarcely stand on my feet for hunger. I saw myself sinking down into the silent tomb. If God and my own intelligence had not enabled me to avail myself of ingenious tricks, there would have been no remedy for me.
When we were at the
