THE SCENE: When poor orphan Lazarillo becomes an “apprentice” beggar to an old blind man, they find themselves furiously competing for basic resources. In this case, the blind man goes to great lengths to retrieve a missing sausage, although everyone probably wishes he hadn’t.
THE TEXT: I then turned to swear, and swore again, that it was not me. But it availed me nothing. From the cunning of the cursed blind man nothing could be hidden. My master got up and took me by the head. Presently he began to smell me, and forcing my mouth open, he put his nose in. It was a long pointed nose. What with the turn I had, the choke in my throat, and the fright I was in, the sausage would not stay in my stomach, and the whole thing came back to its owner. The evil blind man so worked my inside that the half-masticated sausage and the long nose came out of my mouth together. O Lord! who would not rather have been buried than go through that misery? The rage of the perverse old man was such that if people had not been drawn there by the noise, he would not have left me alive.
– The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, 16th Century AD
