La Majoridad

Tratado 1.

In the first “tratado,” Lázaro informs Vuestra Merced that he was born to a miller and his wife on the banks of the River Tormes, in a village close to Salamanca. Lázaro is still a child when his father is killed in a war to which he has been sent after being convicted of ”bleeding” some sacks brought to the mill for grinding. His mother subsequently moves to Salamanca and has a relationship with a black stable-man, who becomes Lazarillo's "stepfather". This relationship produces a half brother for Lazarillo, and ends when the “stepfather” is whipped and basted with hot fat for theft and his mother lashed and ordered not to have further contact with her lover. Unable to care for Lazarillo (the diminutive "–illo" refers to Lázaro as child), his mother hands him over to a blind man to serve as his guide.

Lazarillo quickly and literally learns the hard knocks of life. The first thing the blind man does is tell Lazarillo to put his head close to a stone bull and listen for an unusual sound (the stone bull still stands at one end of the Roman bridge over the River Tormes). Innocently, Lazarillo does as he is told and immediately has his head smashed against the bull by the blind man. It was, as he says, a wake-up call. From then on the relationship between Lazarillo and his master becomes a battle of wits in which the blind man emerges victorious, with one exception… the final battle!

Title page of the Medina del Campo

edition, 1554. Click to enlarge.

Lazarillo’s main concern at this stage is survival, i.e. getting enough to eat. But his first master is astute, deceiving not only the child who was blind to the ways of the world, but also adults who should know better. He is a master beggar and knows how to make money, having memorised countless prayers for all occasions. Lazarillo uses all the tricks he can to outwit the blind man, stealing from his wine jar, eating more than his share of grapes, replacing a juicy sausage with a turnip, but on each occasion he is found out. In the wine episode, Lazarillo ends up having the wine jar smashed on his face; he doesn’t suffer physically after the grape incident but learns a valuable lesson on deception; the sausage incident ends with the blind man stuffing his nose so far down Lazarillo’s throat that Lazarillo throws it up all over his master.

Lazarillo and the blind man. By Goya.

In search of the sausage!

Having suffered enough at the hands of the blind man, Lazarillo is determined to move on. The "tratado" ends with one final trick. On a rainy day, as they are crossing a village square, Lazarillo persuades his master to take a running jump to avoid a wide gutter. The blind man ends up half dead on the ground after crashing into a stone pillar. Lazarillo’s parting words are “Hey, how come you smelled the sausage but not the post? Olé! Olé!” It's Lazarillo’s first clear victory, taking us back at the same time to Lazarillo’s initiation into life with the bull incident. The circle is complete; the blind man has no more to teach him.

Tratado 2.

In the second "tratado," Lazarillo’s meets a priest who is the epitome of avarice. Lazarillo’s main concern is still the search for food, but now he faces a formidable all-seeing adversary whose eyes are described as “dancing in their sockets as if they were mercury.” Suffering great hunger while his master has plenty, he thinks of running away but is held back because he feels too weak and

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