THE SCENE: When the poor altar boy Lazarillo manages to steal a key to the Priest’s food chest, he blames the food he steals on rats and snakes. The Priest’s fear of these pests – and Lazarillo’s bumbling efforts to trick him – come together in a scene that is by turns violent, absurd, and poignant.
THE TEXT: I began to be afraid that, with all my diligence, he might find my key which I kept amongst the straw. I thought it would be safer to put it in my mouth. For when I lived with the blind man I used my mouth as a purse, keeping ten or twelve maravedis in it, all in half blancas, without determined to being prevented from eating.
It chanced, owing to ill-luck, or rather owing to my sins, that I was sleeping one night with the key in my mouth in such a position that the air went out of the hollow in the key and caused it to whistle so that, for my sins, my master heard it. So he got up with the club in his hand, and came to me very quietly that the snake might not hear, for he felt no doubt that it was the snake. He thought that it was in the straw, and he raised the club with the intention of giving it such a blow as to kill it. So he hit me on the head with all his force and left me senseless.
Seeing the quantity of blood he understood the harm he had done me, and went in a great hurry to get a light. Coming back he found me with the key in my mouth, half of it projecting, in the same way as it was when I was whistling with it. The killer of snakes was astounded that it should have been the key. He took it out of my mouth to see what it was. Then he went to try it in the lock, and found out my practices. He said that the rats and the snake that devoured his substance were found. What happened in the next three days I know not, for I was in the belly of the whale. At the end of that time my senses returned. I found myself lying on my straw, and my head covered with unguents and plasters. I was astounded and said: “What is this?” The cruel priest answered that he had caught the rats and the serpent. Finding myself so evilly treated, I began to understand what had happened. At this time an old woman came in and dressed my wound. Then the neighbours began to take off the bandages. They rejoiced when they saw that I had recovered my senses and began to laugh over my misfortunes while I, as the sinner, mourned over them. On another day, when I was up, my master took me by the hand and put me outside the door.
– The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, 16th Century AD
