The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes: His Fortunes and Misfortunes as Told by HimselfAnonymous
General
The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes: His Fortunes and Misfortunes as Told by Himself
Anonymous
Picaresque literature, Spanish; Spain -- Social conditions -- 16th century -- Fiction; Spanish fiction -- Translations into English
Those good men went up to him, and by shouting they aroused him
and begged him to help that poor man who was dying. They told
him to forget about the things that had happened before and the
other man's awful words because he had been paid back for them.
But if he could somehow do something that would take that man out
of his misery and suffering, to do it--for God's sake--because it
was obvious that the other man was guilty and that the pardoner
was innocent and had been telling the truth, since the Lord had
shown His punishment right there when he'd asked for revenge.
The pardoner, as if waking from a sweet dream, looked at them and
looked at the guilty man and all the people there, and very
slowly he said to them: "Good men, you do not need to pray for a
man in whom God has given such a clear sign of Himself. But
since He commands us not to return evil for evil and to forgive
those who harm us, we may confidently ask Him to do what He
commands us to do. We may ask His Majesty to forgive this man
who offended Him by putting such an obstacle in the way of the
holy faith. Let us all pray to Him."
And so he got down from the pulpit and urged them to pray very
devoutly to Our Lord, asking Him to forgive that sinner and bring
back his health and sanity and to cast the devil out of him if,
because of his great sins, His Majesty had permitted one to go in.
They all got down on their knees in front of the altar, and with
the clergy there they began to softly chant a litany. My master
brought the cross and the holy water, and after he had chanted
over him, he held his hands up to heaven and tilted his eyes
upward so that the only thing you could see was a little of their
whites. Then he began a prayer that was as long as it was pious.
And it made all the people cry (just like the sermons at Holy
Week, when the preacher and the audience are both fervent). And
he prayed to God, saying that it was not the Lord's will to give
that sinner death but to bring him back to life and make him
repent. And since the man had been led astray by the devil but
was now filled with the thought of death and his sins, he prayed
to God to forgive him and give him back his life and his health
so he could repent and confess his sins.
And when this was finished, he told them to bring over the
indulgence, and he put it on the man's head. And right away that
sinner of a constable got better, and little by little he began
to come to. And when he was completely back in his senses, he
threw himself down at the pardoner's feet and asked his
forgiveness. He confessed that the devil had commanded him to
say what he did and had put the very words in his mouth. First,
to hurt him and get revenge. Secondly--and mainly--because the
devil himself would really be hurt by all the good that could be
done here if the pardons were bought up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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