Part 5

I was standing at the door, looking out and thinking of these and many other things until my master disappeared down the long and narrow street. Then I went back into the house, and in the time that it would take to say a _credo_ I had run all over it without finding anything. I made the hard bed, took up the jug and went with it to the river. There I saw my master in great request with two fair ladies in a garden. There were other ladies, for many think it fashionable to go and refresh themselves on summer mornings by those pleasant banks. In confidence that they will be well received, several gentlemen of the place also frequent the river-side. As I have said, my master was among them, saying the sweetest things that Ovid ever wrote. They had no shame in asking him to pay for their breakfasts, but he, finding that he was as cold in the purse as he was empty in the stomach, began to have that feeling which robs the face of its colour, and to make not very valid excuses. When they saw his infirmity, they went to those who were not suffering from it. I was breaking my fast with some stalks of vegetables with great diligence, and not seeing any more of my master I went back to the house.

I thought of sweeping some part of it, which was very necessary, but I could find nothing with which to do it; so I set myself to think what I should do next. [Sidenote: Lazaro waits long for his master to bring food, but he never came.] I thought I would wait for my master until noon. When he came he might by good luck bring something for us to eat. But there was no such experience for me. It was two o’clock, my master had not come, and I was desperately hungry. So I shut the door, put the key where I was told, and gave all my attention to my own necessities.

[Sidenote: Lazaro’s successful begging expedition.]

With a low and feeble voice, and my hands in my bosom, the good God before my eyes, and my tongue repeating His Name, I began to pray for bread at the largest houses and doors I came upon. As this method was sucked in with my mother’s milk, or I should say that I learnt it from that great master of it, the blind man, so good a disciple was I that, although in this city little is known of charity, nor had it been an abundant year, I made such a good haul that, before the clock struck four, I had several pounds of bread inside me, and two loaves up my sleeve and in my bosom. I returned to the house, and, in passing a tripe-shop, I begged of one of the shopwomen, who gave me a piece of a cow’s foot and several pieces of boiled tripe.

When I got back to the house my good master was already there. The cloak was folded and put on the bench, and he was pacing up and down. He came up to me, and I thought he was going to scold me for being late. He asked me where I had been, and I said, “Sir! I was here until it struck two. But when I saw that you were not coming, I went over the city, to commend myself to the kind people, and they have given me what you see.” I showed him the bread and the tripe, which I carried in the end of my skirt. At this he seemed well pleased and said, “Well, I waited for you to eat, and when you did not come I ate what there was, but you have done well in this, for it is better to beg in the name of God than to steal. He helps me as He sees fit. [Sidenote: What touches the esquire’s honour.] I merely charge you that people must not be told that you live with me, for it touches my honour; though I well believe that it will be kept secret, because very few people know me here.”

“Do not be troubled about that, sir,” I replied to him, “for cursed be he who asks the question, and myself if I tell him anything. No, we shall soon be free from want. When I saw that nothing good came into this house I went out. Surely the ground must be bad, or there must be unlucky houses which bring ill-luck to those who live in them.” “This one must be so without doubt,” he replied. “I promise you that after a month I will not stay in it, even if it is given me as my own.”

I sat down at the end of the bench, and, that he might not take me for a glutton, I said nothing about the meal. I began supper, and to bite my bread and tripe. [Sidenote: The esquire longs for a share of Lazaro’s supper.] Looking stealthily I saw that my unhappy master could not take his eyes off my skirt, which served as a plate. May God have as much pity for me as I had for him! I could feel what he felt, and have been feeling so every day. I thought whether it would be right for me to invite him to share, for as he had told me that he had dined, he might decline the invitation. Finally, I asked that sinner to help me in my work, and to break his fast as he did the day before. He had a better chance, the food being better and my hunger less. It pleased God to comply with my wish, and I even think with his. For as he passed, in walking up and down, he came to me and said: “I assure you, Lazaro, that you have the best grace in eating that I ever saw in any one, and that no one can see you doing it, without having a longing to eat, even when he had no such longing before.” “The great longing that you have makes you think my way of eating so beautiful,” I said to myself, “and causes your wish to help me.”

[Sidenote: Lazaro’s courtesy, tact, and kindness.]

He longed to join me, and I opened a way by saying, “Sir, the good tools make the good craftsman. This bread is delicious, and this cow’s foot is so well cooked and seasoned that there is no one that would not be drawn to it by the smell alone.” “Cow’s foot, is it?” he said. “Yes, sir!” “I tell you that is the best mouthful in the world, there is not even a pheasant that is so good.” “Try it, sir!” said I, “and see whether it is as good as you think.” [Sidenote: Lazaro generously provides his master with a supper.] I put on one side the cow’s foot and three or four pieces of bread, and he sat down by my side, and began to eat as if he would like to devour every little bone. “This wonderful food is like a hotch-potch,” he said. “You eat with the best kind of sauce,” I replied. “Before God,” said he, “if I had known I would not have eaten a mouthful all day.” “Thus the good years avenge me,” I said to myself. He asked me for the jug of water, and I gave it to him just as I had brought it. My master had not over-eaten, and it is a sign of this that there was no want of water. We both drank, and went to bed in the same way as the night before, well contented. To avoid prolixity I may say that the same thing went on for the next eight or ten days.

In the mornings my master went out to take the air in the streets with the same satisfied look, leaving poor Lazaro with the head of a wolf. I often reflected on my misfortune that, escaping from the evil masters I had served, and seeking to better myself, I should have found one who not only did not maintain me, but whom I had to support. With all that I liked him well enough, seeing that he could not do better. My feeling was rather of sorrow than of enmity. Often I fared ill in bringing to the house that with which he might be satisfied.

[Sidenote: Lazaro examines the esquire’s clothes, and finds nothing.]

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 any one 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. [Sidenote: Lazaro has a kindly feeling for his third master.] 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!

[Sidenote: Begging prohibited.]

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. [Sidenote: Lazaro is kept alive by some kind shop-girls.] 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 noon, 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. [Sidenote: Master and boy in a miserable and starving condition.] 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.”

[Sidenote: The esquire brings home a real, but bemoans his fate.]

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 to-day 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. [Sidenote: Terror of Lazaro, thinking they were bringing a dead body to his house.] 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 place, to the house where there is nothing to eat and drink.” When I heard this the heaven and earth seemed to be joined together. I exclaimed, “O unhappy me! it is to our house that they are taking this dead body.” I turned back, slipped through the crowd of people, and ran down the street as fast as I could to our house. [Sidenote: Lazaro bars the door to keep out the dead body.] When I got there I began to close the door in great haste, calling on my master to come and help, and to defend the entrance. He was rather surprised, thinking it was something else, and said to me, “What is this, my boy, what are you making a noise about, what are you doing, why are you shutting the door in such a fury?” “Oh sir,” I cried, “they are bringing a dead body here!” “How do you know?” he said. “I met it in the street,” I replied, “and the dead man’s wife was crying and shouting, ‘My lord and husband, whither do they take you, to the dark and dismal house, to the sad and wretched place, to the house where they never eat nor drink.’ It must be here, sir, that they are bringing it.” Certainly when my master heard this, though he had no great reason to be merry, he laughed so heartily that it was a long time before he could speak. By this time I had got the beam across the door and put my shoulder against it, to make it more secure.

[Sidenote: Lazaro barring the door.]

The people passed with their corpse, and all the time I pushed against the door, to prevent them from getting into the house. At last, when he had had much more of laughing than of eating, my good master said to me, “In truth, Lazaro, seeing what the widow was saying, you were right to think as you did. But God has been good to us, and they have passed. So open, open, and go and get the food.” “Let me wait, sir, until they are out of the street,” I begged. [Sidenote: At last the esquire unbars the door, and Lazaro does his marketing.] At last my master came and opened the door in spite of me, which was necessary, because I was so upset with fear and excitement. I then went out. We ate well on that day, but I took no pleasure in it, nor did my colour come back for three more days, while my master smiled a good deal, whenever he noticed the state I had been in.

In this way I continued with my third and poorest master, the esquire, for several succeeding days, always longing to know the reason of his coming and remaining in this place. For, from the first day that I took service with him, I saw that he was a stranger, from the little intercourse he had with the inhabitants. [Sidenote: The esquire tells his story to Lazaro.] At last I accomplished my desire, and came to know what I wanted. It was one day when we had eaten reasonably well, and were rather well satisfied. He told me about his affairs, and said that he came from Old Castille. He said he had left his home for no other reason than that he had not taken off his cap to a knight who was his neighbour. “Sir,” I said, “if that was what happened, and he was greater than you, were you not wrong in not having doffed your cap first? but he ought to have taken his off as well.” He went on to say that the knight did take off his cap to him; but that he had taken his off first so many times, that it was well to see what the other would do. “It seems to me, sir,” said I, “that you should have doffed to one greater and richer than yourself.” [Sidenote: The esquire expounds his views of honour to Lazaro.] “You are only a boy,” he replied, “and cannot understand the things appertaining to honour in which, at the present time, is all the wealth of respectable people. You must remember that I am, as you know, an esquire. I swear to God that if I met a count in the street and he did not salute me, I would not salute him if I met him again. I should enter some house as if I had business there, or turn down another street before he came near me. For a gentleman owes nothing to any one but God and the king; nor is it right for a man of honour to forego his self-respect. I remember that one day, in my country, I affronted and nearly came to blows with an officer, because whenever I saluted him he said, ‘May God preserve your honour!’ ‘You are a wretch,’ I said, ‘for you are not well bred. You said to me “God preserve you,” as if I was nobody.’ From that time he took off his cap, and behaved properly.” [Sidenote: The esquire continues to discourse on the same subject.] “Is it not good manners for one man to salute another,” I asked, “or to say ‘God preserve you’?” He answered, “It is only underbred people who talk thus. To gentlemen like myself, it should be not less than ‘I kiss the hands of your honour!’ or at the very least, ‘I kiss your hand, sir!’ if he who speaks is a knight. In my own land I would not suffer a mere ‘God preserve you,’ nor will I suffer it from any man in the world, from the king downwards.” “Sinner that I am,” said I, “for having taken so little care about it. But will you not suffer any one to pray for you?”

He continued: “Above all, I am not so poor but that I possess, in my own country, an estate of houses which are well-built, sixteen leagues from where I was born, in the vicinity of Valladolid. They would be worth two hundred times a thousand maravedis if they were in good repair; and I also have a pigeon-cote which, if it was not demolished, would give out two hundred pigeons every year, as well as other things about which I am silent, as it might touch my honour.

[Sidenote: The esquire’s honour makes him fastidious in accepting employment.]

“I came to this city because I expected to find a good appointment, but things have not turned out as I thought. Canons and other Churchmen find plenty, because their profession is not overcrowded. Careless gentlemen also seek me, but to serve with such people involves great trouble, for a man must lose his self-respect with them. If not they tell you to go in God’s name, while the pay is usually at long intervals; when they wish to clear their consciences, and pay for your work, they make you free of a wardrobe containing a worn doublet and a frayed cloak. [Sidenote: Service with a great lord is not to the esquire’s liking.] When a man takes service with a titled lord there is also misery. I cannot undertake to serve or content such. By the Lord! if I should engage myself to one, I think that I should be a great favourite, and that he would confer great favours on me; but I should have to like his habits and customs though not the best in the world; I should be expected never to say a word that would displease, to be very careful in word and deed, not to kill myself in doing things which the great man would not see, never to consort with those who would do him disservice because it would behove me to guard his interests. If some servant of his excites his anger by neglecting his duties, and it should appear that something might be said for the accused, on the contrary you must scoff at the poor fellow maliciously. It is a duty to inform against those in the house, and to find out what is done outside, so as to report it. Many other things of a like kind are the custom in a palace, and with the lord of it, who appears honourable. But such lords do not want to see virtuous men in their houses. On the contrary, they hate and despise them, calling them useless and unacquainted with business. I do not wish to trust my fortunes with such people.”

[Sidenote: When the people came for their rent, the esquire disappeared.]

In this way my master was lamenting his ill-fortune, and giving me an account of his valorous person. While he was thus employed a man and an old woman came in by the door. The man asked for the rent of the house, and the old woman for the rent of the bed, saying that they were hired from two months to two months. I think the sum required was twelve to thirteen reals. My master gave them a very civil answer, saying that he would go out and get change, and return in the afternoon.

But his departure was without any return. They returned in the afternoon when it was late, and I told them that he had not yet come back. The night came, but he did not. I was afraid to stay in the house alone, so I went to my girl-friends, told them what had happened, and slept there. When morning came the creditors returned and asked for the lodger. The girls answered that his boy was there, and that the key was in the door. They asked me where my master was, and I answered that I did not know where he was, but that he had gone out to get change. I thought that he had gone with the change from me as well as from them.

[Sidenote: Creditors search for the esquire’s effects, but there are none.]

When they had heard what I had to say they went for an officer and a scrivener. Presently they returned with them. They took the key, called me and some witnesses, opened the door and went in to take possession of my master’s effects until he had paid his debts. They went all over the house and found it empty. Then they asked me where my master’s effects were, his chest, clothes, and jewelry. I said that I did not know. No doubt, they said, they have got up in the night and taken them somewhere else. [Sidenote: Lazaro is taken into custody.] “Sir,” they said to the officer, “take this boy into custody, for he knows where the effects are.” On this the officer came and took me by the collar, saying, “Boy, you are my prisoner if you do not show us the goods of your master.”

I never was in such a plight as this, though I had been taken by the collar many times. I was dreadfully frightened and began to cry, promising to tell them all they might ask. “That is well,” they said, “tell all you know and you have nothing to fear.”

The scrivener then sat down on the bench to write out the inventory, asking me what there was. I said, “What my master has, according to what he told me, is a very good estate consisting of houses and a demolished pigeon-cote.” “This is worth little,” they said, “but it will do for the payment of his debts. In what part of the town is it?” “In his own country,” I replied. “By the Lord! this is a fine business,” they exclaimed, “and where is his country?” “He told me that it was in Old Castille,” I said. The officer and the scrivener laughed a good deal, and said, “This is a good story to cover your debts!”

[Sidenote: Lazaro is released, at the intercession of his girl-friends.]

The girls who were my neighbours, and who were present, then said: “Sirs! this is an innocent child, and has only been a few days with that esquire, and knows no more than your worships. He used to come to our house and we gave him to eat what we could spare, for the love of God, and at night he went to sleep with the esquire.”

Seeing that I was innocent they let me go. Then the officer and the scrivener asked for their fees from the man and the old woman, over which there was much contention and noise. They declared that they ought not to be forced to pay, for they had got nothing to pay with, and that the seizure of goods had not been made. The others maintained that they had been taken away from other business of more consequence. Finally, after making a great noise, they went away, and I do not know how it ended.

[Sidenote: Lazaro finds himself deserted by his master.]

Having rested from my past troubles I went about to seek employment. Thus I left my poor third master, and know not his unhappy fate. Looking back at all that had gone against me, I found that I had managed my affairs in a reverse way. Masters are usually deserted by their boys, but with me it was not so. For my master deserted and fled from me.

FOURTH MASTER