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
The girl began to pull and tear at her hair, hitting herself so
hard it was like she was possessed. The young man was
courageous, and he consoled her, telling her not to worry, that
he could handle everything. I was all ears, with my mouth full
of kid, and when I heard that those braggers were there I thought
I was going to die of fear. And I would have, too, but since my
gullet was closed off, my soul didn't find the door standing
open, and it went back down.
The two Cids came in, and as soon as they saw their sister and
the bawd they shouted, "Here they are! At last we have them.
Now they'll die!"
I was so frightened by their shouts that I fell to the floor, and
when I hit I ejected the goat that was choking me. The two women
got behind the young man like chicks under a hen's wing running
from a hawk. Brave and graceful, he pulled out his sword and
went at the brothers so furiously that their fright turned them
into statues. The words froze in their mouths, and the swords in
their sheaths. The young man asked them what they wanted or what
they were looking for, and as he was talking he grabbed one of
them and took away his sword. Then he pointed this sword at his
eyes, while he held his own sword at the other one's eyes. At
every movement he made with the swords, they trembled like
leaves. When the old woman and the sister saw the two Rolands so
subdued, they went up and disarmed them. The innkeeper came in
at the noise we were all making (I had gotten up and had one of
them by the beard).
It all seemed to me like the gentle bulls in my town: boys, when
they see them, run away; but they gradually get more and more
daring, and when they see they aren't as fierce as they look,
they lose all their fear and go right up and throw all kinds of
garbage on them. When I saw that those scarecrows weren't as
ferocious as they looked, I plucked up my courage and attacked
them more bravely than my earlier terror had allowed.
"What's this?" asked the innkeeper. "Who dares to cause such an
uproar in my house?"
The women, the gentleman, and I began shouting that they were
thieves who had been following us to rob us. When the innkeeper
saw them without any weapons, and at our mercy, he said, "Thieves
in my house!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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